


Never give up, Never give in.

by the_nita



Series: What happened after New York [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Collaboration, Established Relationship, F/M, Roleplay, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_nita/pseuds/the_nita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which once again, littleblueartist and I delve back into the world of Post-Battle of New York Clint & Natasha. When we last saw our heroes, Natasha had left Clint in a hotel room in Whitecrest, New York, after helping him finally shatter the remaining hold the Tesseract and Loki had on him. Both agents are emotional wrecks, convinced their respective monsters have destroyed their chance at happiness with each other. </p><p>For those who asked us to make sure that we continued the story and gave them a happier ending - here's the start of that road. They have some distance to go.</p><p>Writing with littleblue is possibly one of the best parts of my day and I hope you enjoy what we've done as much as we've enjoyed doing it.</p><p>This is a collaborative RP that has been edited together to read like a fic. Any edit issues are mine, not hers, so bitch at me. We're not finished the story (not sure we ever will be, to tell the truth) but we have enough to start posting.</p><p>Hope you enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Riding the Kawasaki that she’d appropriated from a backyard near the inn, Natasha rode back to New York, wind tearing at her eyes. She took the back roads to avoid the police – stolen bikes don’t often have helmets and getting pulled over wasn’t something she was prepared to deal with. The need to concentrate on the road, the wind pulling at her eyes and the gathering dark gave her something to focus on that wasn’t how she felt. She didn’t have to think about the fact that she had destroyed her partner…her lover…and then abandoned him in a room without so much as a backward glance.

If she had looked back – if she had given in to the urge to see his face one more time before she walked out the door, she couldn’t have left. She barely managed to keep herself together when he bandaged her throat. The pain in his eyes, the way he would barely touch her, spoke volumes to how he had to feel about her. She was every inch the monster that the Red Room had made her and no amount of Iowa goodness was ever going to change that. At least she could trade the red of innocents in her ledger to the red of bad men. It wasn’t the balance Barton had once suggested, but she was never going to be the person Clint had thought she could be so there was little point in wallowing in hope.

Returning to New York, she called in to SHIELD, giving her secure code to be directed to Fury. She had no new handler – it hadn’t been enough time, barely two days since Coulson had died. In less than 48 hours, she had lost her partner and her handler – the two men in the world she was closest to – and all she had left was an angry director from an organization that barely stood her.

Ushered outside Fury’s office, she stood waiting for entry to give her report. Given that she was not due back, and certainly not due back without Barton, she was prepared to cool her heels for some time until the Director was ready to address her. Pale cool ice ran through her veins – she could not afford the passions of blood. She was a monster. She was a weapon. At least she could be a weapon in the hands of those who might do good.

Nick Fury had been around long enough to realize that control was merely an illusion. Perhaps even more than the infinity serum coursing through his veins, what had kept him alive all these years was his ability to adapt, to think on his feet and roll with whatever life hurled at him.

How was he supposed to adapt to this? How did he clean up a mess of this magnitude, and prepare for what was coming? Practically every cat had been released from every bag, and worst of all in his mind he still had no idea how many of his own people were on the Security Council's payroll. He'd known they had their moles and sleeper agents sure, but this? It had taken even him by surprise to watch not only one but two of his birds loaded with the worst kind of care package leaving his boat.

He had about a thousand people to talk to and twice that number of things to do in Manhattan before they headed back to the Helicarrier, but he'd just been told Romanov was reporting in. He had conducted a short debriefing with his agents and Captain Rogers before he sent them off the grid for the time being, getting adequate information to keep the Council at bay long enough to offer the world's heroes a short respite at least.

Yet not even a full 48 hours after the dust had settled, his best asset and second biggest problem child was checking in. And she was alone.

Fury sat at his desk with his hands steepled in front of his face, chin resting lightly on his thumbs. Hill finished running through the evening's itinerary and setting a stack digital portfolio stocked with files for him to go through on his desk. He glanced down at it disdainfully, then back up to his second in command.

"I don't suppose she mentioned to you the reason she came in on her own." He said with a slight sigh. 

"Not a word Sir. But she's..." Maria hesitated, not sure if Fury was in the mood for an unasked for opinion. He fixed his monocular stare on her, silently prompting her to continue with a rise of his dark brows. She cleared her throat. "She doesn't look good, Sir." To her credit Agent Hill held her superior's gaze without flinching. Fury didn't give away a hint of it, but her tone worried him. Natasha was one of his very best, and he needed her to stay that way. When Clint had first brought her in, the Director's only thought had been to use her for what she knew and make Barton finish the job he'd been given. But the longer she worked as a member of Strike Team Delta the more Nick came to realize what a find the archer had truly come across. She was an excellent agent certainly, but she had managed to win what only a handful of people on the planet could claim, his trust.

"They took a beating out there, and a lot has been lost that can't be replaced. It's to be expected." He replied, reaching to his ear to tap his comm and summon Agent Romanov in. Maria tensed and held up her hand, making him hesitate.

"No, it isn't that. I  _did_  expect her to be worn out, fired up, upset even, in her way. But she's running cold. She looks like... Like how she did when Barton first brought her in." Maria finished, her lips set into a thin line from stress.

 _Damn. I thought Barton got her past falling back on Widow-mode when she's upset. This must be very, very bad._  Fury cursed mentally, nodding at Hill that he understood and pressing his comm. "Agent Romanov, report." He said, hitting the button under the lip of his desk unlocking the door.

Striding into Fury’s office, Natasha took a chair across from the Director. His shadow, Hill, as always was in his office. _Very well_ , thought Natasha, _if Fury wants his lapdog here, then she’s here. “_ Director Fury, my report is twofold. As instructed, Agent Barton and I took a brief leave to recover from the effects of the recent battle. As I have adapted quicker, I have returned and wish to be assigned to active duty, effective immediately. Agent Barton is currently still on leave. We were able to establish that there are no further effects of the attack by the Asgardian on him but he will likely require additional time to recover from both the attack and the wounds he received during the battle.”

The redhead took a slow breath and leveled an icy gaze at Fury. She wanted there to be no misunderstanding about the next thing she said. She had to stop herself from being a liability to Clint and had to get out while she could. As she knew she couldn’t _leave_ SHIELD without immediately becoming suspect, she needed to do the next best thing.

“Director, I wish to resume my operation in Russia. I also wish to formally recommend the dissolution of Strike Team Delta. With the Avengers plastered all over the media, it is merely a matter of time before someone makes out both Agent Barton and I. If we are still working as a team, we dramatically increase the chance that someone will recognize us and jeopardize any mission we work on. Agent Barton is a valuable asset to SHIELD as am I and at this point, we are best utilized in different locations.”

Fury waited. Silent, utterly, completely still as Agent Romanov gave her report. He took in every last detail, from her absolutely perfect posture to her even, icy tone that gave away nothing. She truly was peerless in her field, able to play any part she needed to in order to survive.

But it was her perfection itself that was a red flag to the director. Why was she in survival mode? They had been through the wringer certainly, but even at the short debriefing he held with his agents and Rogers before Loki got hauled off by his brother she had been completely different. Tired, beat up, haunted by the losses they had sustained, but still fiery, glad to be on the other end of their impossible fight still breathing. Now...that spark was gone. All that remained was the cold, efficient machine she had been when Clint had first brought her in. He hadn't seen her this bad since that very first day.

Fury's stern exposed eye slid to Agent Hill for an instant, and she nodded slightly, as if confirming what she'd said about Natasha moments ago. He cleared his throat and looked back at his operative, swiping the tip of his tongue over his teeth beneath closed lips as he considered all that she'd said and not said.

"If you say Barton is clean, I believe you. In fact I'm much more inclined to believe your assessment of his condition over his own since he tends to...neglect his well-being in favor of getting back to work." Fury opened the black portfolio Hill had placed on his desk and scanned through a few files.

"I'm not willing to dissolve the most successful strike team SHIELD has seen since the organization's inception at this time." He glanced back up at the redhead, almost daring her to speak out against his denial of her request. She showed zero reaction to his words, which was almost more troubling than if she'd argued with him. "However, you were pulled off a priority five mission in Moscow when all this hell broke loose. I was going to take the loss but if you think you can salvage it, I'm all for it." He continued, still watching his top spy intently. She was a neon sign; her flawless composure would fool most but worried him.

"Are you sure you're ready for active duty, Romanov? Saving the world is pretty much a free pass to take some time off." He prompted, already knowing the answer he was going to get but he still had to try. 

She nodded, tight & efficient use of movement. “It is best that the mission be picked up as soon as possible. Luchkov and his men were neutralized but we have a few other loose ends to deal with there. With your permission, I would like to return as I had originally gone in. Solo. Given the…mess…I had to leave behind when I was extracted, I want to be able to move quickly and without a lot of extra weight.”

When the director finally acquiesced to her request, Natasha spun on her heel and headed straight to her quarters. Five minutes saw her packed and prepped for the flight to Russia. She could clean her weapons on the flight. Right now, she needed to be gone. Gone as far as she could get from her partner – from her best friend – from the man she realised she loved more than her own life but had betrayed so profoundly. Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, boarded the plane for Russia, calling herself every kind of coward.

The trip was uneventful, for which the redhead was grateful. _Speaking_ of Barton had been enough to start cracking her iron clad calm. She had to get it together and diving headfirst into the Russian political nightmare that was her last mission was perfect. Nothing but bad men and people the world would not miss if they died – including her.

She returned to the dingy safehouse she had used as a base of operations and began once again working her way through the list of politicos to find out what she needed to know. _This_ was what she was good at. Love is for children, because only children can stand such irrational behaviour. Only children can have their hearts ripped apart and still love. Assassins do not love. Black widows do not have hearts. She did not love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha & Clint bury themselves in their respective jobs with as can be expected levels of success.
> 
> More of Littleblueartist (on tumblr) and my collaborative RP. Any issue edits are mine. Blue, babe, you make this too goddamned easy...

Bands of murky yellow light filtered in through the slats of the blinds covering the window casting a striped pattern across the archer's face. The air in the shitty old apartment was stiflingly hot and humid, clinging to his skin and making the simple task of breathing seem like more trouble than it was worth. The pull of whiskey he took from his flask was tepid and flat, the normally enjoyable burn going down only adding to his discomfort.

He listened intently to the conversation happening in the room three floors directly below him via the bug he'd installed there earlier that day. His Cantonese wasn't exactly polished but between what he could glean with his own ears and the real-time translated transcription he read on his laptop screen as they spoke gave him everything he needed.

He'd been on this recon mission for two weeks, watching and listening from a distance, slowly tightening the noose around the necks of the human traffickers that were using this rundown port as their hub for moving 'product.' Clint's official assignment was strictly observation, data collection, so SHIELD could follow the fish he was tracking here back to a bigger pond.

But the archer was getting antsy. Long experience told him that he'd gotten everything useful he was going to from these monsters, and meanwhile he'd had to witness dozens of women and children be abducted and sold because he wasn't to trigger any bells while he was getting information.

He took another swig of the cheap whiskey. The dozen or so men he'd been monitoring that night were getting ready to go pick up their newest purchases. The archer was done waiting, these assholes and their buddies at the docks were going down tonight. He didn't care if it was against orders; he had what he needed from them. He didn't care that he didn't have backup going into an angry hornets nest. He didn't care that if things went sideways and he still managed to survive Fury would likely have him stuck on a guard tower somewhere sandy and miserable for months till he remembered he wasn't the one calling the shots. After the stunt he'd pulled in Mexico City last month and going off the grid in South Africa for eight days before coming here, he was fairly certain he was on his last 'get out of jail free card' with his superiors. Oh well. He was bound to run out of them eventually.

He didn't really care about much of anything anymore.

* * *

Once again, she was cleaned up. Once again, she was wearing a dress that hugged miles of curves, dark enough to make her milk-white skin glow in the lamplight. Once again, she had a large, dangerous man convinced that she was in over her head and due to be his shortly.

Aleksandr Valevach was Assistant Deputy to the Prosecutor General of Russia. He was an older man, comfortable in his power and his eventual ability to replace his superior. Unlike many of the Russian politicals that Natasha had been investigating, Valevach was fit. His 6’4” frame was trim but powerful – a classic Russian bear in the truest form. His hand was currently resting on her right hip as he held her possessively to his side as they navigated the lobby of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra heading to his box. During the concert, Valevach would be meeting with his Chinese “friend”, Li Zhou. What the redhead had been able to establish, Li was funnelling money into Russia, with the intent of buying himself the next Prosecutor General, a man with a lot of power, but not what would make sense for China to be buying. Which made him very interesting to SHIELD and consequently to Natasha.

She smiled, white teeth gleaming in the low light of the box as he pulled out her seat for her. She smoothed her dress and gracefully sat down, knees tipped towards the large Russian. He sat roughly next to her, his broad palm coming down on the middle of her thigh, gripping it lightly in a possessive manner. Natasha’s eyes flickered to where his hand rested and mentally added it to the list of reasons of why Valevach was going to wind up in a lot of pain and soon.

Li slinked into the balcony box, a smug smirk on his thin lips. As much as Natasha wanted Valevach neutralised, she was willing to ensure that Li was nowhere to be found at the end of this mission. He was vicious, mean and willing to sell anyone and anything to get what he wanted.

* * *

Clint yanked his headphones off and quickly gathered up his gear, strapping his gun to his thigh and throwing his bow across his back. He slipped out the window of the apartment and silently descended down the fire escape. He ran down the alley to where the traffickers' van was parked, slapping a tiny tracking device inside the rear wheel well. Sprinting back around the building to his dark unmarked sedan, he turned on his GPS tracker and waited.

The archer tailed the men to the harbor. Hong Kong never really slept but at three a.m. there wasn't much traffic at this run down port away from the major commercial harbors. He parked and slipped through the shadows, keeping his targets in sight but keeping his distance.

One of Barton's strongest advantages was his nearly unlimited patience. He waited for nearly an hour while the men he'd been shadowing spoke with the dealers that came off the small boat, sharp eyes scanning the area for ideal sniping spots. Finally he decided on the roof of an abandoned fish vendor. He slunk around to his desired vantage point while the men loaded their 'purchases,' three bound and gagged women and a younger kid, into their van. 

The second the captives had been loaded in the vehicle, the Hawk struck. First was the driver they sent to stat the van while they finished up, a bolt through his right eye ended him silently. Clint nocked another bolt to his bow and fired in the same heartbeat, taking out the leader of his targets. The remaining men acted as he expected, scattering behind various crates and vehicles, ready to save their own asses without a thought for their comrade bleeding on the pavement.

Barton grinned and took out four more from his position, hearing them yelling at the driver to take the product and go, but of course a dead man wasn't going to heed their orders. They still didn't know where he was and a couple of them fired panicked shots fired at random into the darkness. The archer crept down from the roof and circled around, careful to always keep the van in view in case any of the goons tried to make a break for it and get away. 

He counted them off in his head, leaving the men that had arrived on the boat for last. One of the yelled to the others to grab their merchandise and clear out, Clint's first instinct was to pick them off but then another thought occurred to him. He fired an incendiary arrow into the crates one of them was crouched behind; making the man decide it was worth losing a few products in exchange for his own hide.

He saw the three from the boat start running back to the dock, firing blindly as they went. Clint quickly ran to the van and threw the back door open, startling the captives huddled together in a steel cage inside. "Easy, easy," he put his hands up, speaking in a soft voice in his broken Cantonese.

"You're safe now. Help is coming, just sit tight all right?" He assured them, shutting the van doors again and locking them. He reached down and pressed the panic button on the tracker in the wheel well. Now it would transmit a distress signal to his handler, Reynolds. He would leave it to them to get these people home; right now he had a boat to catch.

The archer sprinted down the dock, just in time to see the rusted vessel pulling away. He leaped off the end of the dock and just managed to hit the railing, swinging himself over onto the deck and crouching behind some crates. 

Reynolds was not going to like this. The man was his fourth handler in five weeks, which was actually nothing strange for the archer really. He didn't tend to work well with others; Coulson had been the only exception to his general rule of burning through handlers as quick as he did his arrows. But if that ass clown wanted to know where their target's dealers were sourced, what better way was there for Clint to find out than by seeing for himself?

* * *

The concert over, Valevich escorted Natasha back to his hotel room with a meaty hand wrapped firmly around her waist. When she tried to slip to one side, he pulled her roughly to him, trapping her between a wall and his massive frame, informing her that he was not done with her for the evening. She was to be a good girl and come along. He had business to attend to but had no intention of letting business interfere with his pleasure. He tangled one large hand in her hair, bringing her face to his. Deep within her head, beneath the cover that let her eyes widen with fear, her face flush with emotions she had no way to address and her rapid breathing, Natasha was pleased. If Valevich wanted his business and pleasure together, that meant there was a good chance that whatever he and Li were up to would go down tonight. She could find the information then call in the tactical team and move on to her next target.

Valevich half dragged her to his hotel room by the fistful of hair he had. Tossing her in the room, across the bed that dominated it as he entered it, he informed her to sit and be quiet. He had business to attend to and then he would permit her to demonstrate her appreciation of his efforts this evening.

Keeping the scared little girl expression on her face, she catalogued the ways she would hurt him: suffocate him with one of the goose down pillows; choke him out between her thighs; improvise the pen on the desk into a shiv and slide it into his carotid or femoral….but the more she thought about it, the more a simple classic came to her mind. Correctly applied, a simple right cross would break his cheekbone, dislocate his jaw and render him in enough pain to make him cooperative and give the redhead the satisfaction of wiping that overly confident, smug look off his face.

He really believed he was going to fuck her. Ice ran through her veins. No one would ever touch her again, mission or no. The last man she held within her, she had destroyed utterly. She would neither profane his memory nor run the risk ever again. Her monster was cruelty itself. Not for love, not for business would she ever again allow someone access to her body.

Valevich poured two large glasses of vodka and handed one to her. “Here. We drink to my success, my sweet angel. My business associate will be here shortly. Drink up and when he and I are done, we will celebrate.” He saluted her and tossed the vodka back in one long swallow. Natasha did the same, the burn of the alcohol focusing her on the here and now. Now was not the time to get lost in the past and _he_ had to remain firmly something in her past.

He set his glass down, pulling hers from her hand, and loomed over her. “Tonight, little dove, you will be mine to pluck.” His hand slid down her face, lingering over her mouth and dropping to the top of her dress. “Tonight, I will make you sing,” his hand skating down over the front of her dress, pulling the neckline down to reveal her black satin bra. “Tonight, I will make you fly,” he said, dipping his head to her chest to bite at her creamy skin and began to push at the satin.

Something snapped in Natasha’s mind. No one would make her fly but her Hawk…before the large Russian knew it, she had brought her hands up to cradle his head. She brought him even closer, and then with a rapid jerk, she snapped his neck. Over two hundred pounds of corrupt politician landed on her as he suddenly died like a puppet with its strings cut.

_Shit_ , she thought, as she realised that without Valevich, trapping Li would be so much more difficult. She extracted herself from under him and pulled him to the bathroom. Rolling him into the tub, she shut the door behind her, mind working rapidly. At least Li had seen the two of them together tonight. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she might be able to convince him that she was Valevich’s agent and he could work directly through her.

She stood for a moment, examining the room to ensure no other signs of her struggle with Valevich were visible when the room swam. Shaking her head to clear it, the redhead stumbled. The room began to flex and bend in ways that told her she had been drugged. The vodka…it had to be the vodka. She fell to her knees, trying to dig in her purse for her transmitter but she could barely control her hands. Fighting as she began to lose consciousness, she heard the door to the hotel room open. It was Li, looking well pleased and 3 goons. Gazing up at the men who had entered, Li smiled an oily toothy grin. “Welcome, Ms. Romanov….” Her world went black as the drugs in her system claimed her and the Black Widow fell to the floor.

* * *

Clint hunkered down amongst the various stacked up crates and steel drums stored in the stern of the boat, coated with so much dust and grime he was sure they were rarely if ever used. He ran his options through his head, none of them were exactly promising but in line with his newly adopted mode of operation: _Well fuck it, let's see what happens if I jump in the shark tank_. It had always been his mode really, only now he didn't really care if he didn't make it out alive.

The archer passed the long, lurching boat ride fighting the battle to stay out of his own mind. It had been 62 days and 14 hours since he'd let her walk out that door and out of his life. He had spent the first month or so quietly keeping tabs on her, hoping to somehow glean from her dry, businesslike mission reports and status updates that she was doing all right. He felt like a childish idiot, but every time he'd try to pick up the phone or pull up an email, he would think about what he'd done to her that night and get so disgusted with himself that he couldn't bear to contact her.

Finally he couldn't stand it anymore and hopped a plane to Russia when he was supposed to be in Mexico City. It wasn't too hard for him to track her down, he'd done it enough times and he knew her patterns that she probably wasn't even aware of herself. He'd picked up her trail from her mission reports, and gotten all the way to the hotel she was staying at, renting a room just below hers. 

He'd lain on the bed staring up at the ceiling all night. The next morning he left. The following morning in Mexico City, he nearly caused an international incident and ended up in a maximum security prison leaving Fury to wade through an ocean of red tape and favor cashing to keep his sorry ass from being executed. After that he stopped keeping an eye on his little redhead and started taking as many blacklisted missions as possible.

Clint grinned as he took another pull from his flask, savoring the burn down his throat. Tracking these traffickers further down the rabbit hole was actually pretty tame in the grand scheme of all things Barton. He just hoped Reynolds would see it that way when he checked in next from wherever-the-hell this boat was landing.

Wherever-the-hell turned out to be a run-down Chinese port several hours away, Clint slipped silently off the boat on the heels of his prey, ducking from shadow to shadow and freezing in the shadows of a few stacked shipping pallets when they met someone on the dock and started talking. Fortunately they were speaking Mandarin, which he was far more familiar with having grown up in a carnival whose cook was an old Chinese bastard that didn't speak a stitch of English.

"You lost four products in Hong Kong? Are you fucking kidding me?" The wiry man they'd met on the dock hissed at them.

"It wasn't our fault; it was those Honger fucks that got followed. I don't know what happened. We got to the harbor, made the exchange, and they just started dropping like flies. We had to clear out before they got us too." The boat captain spat back defensively, getting affirmative nods from his two companions. Clint couldn't help the little smirk of satisfaction playing at his lips at that.

The thin man growled a little in his throat. "Well tonight's your lucky night you idiots. Normally Li Zhou would have your heads for a fuck up like that, but I just got a message from him. He just had The Spider handed to him on a silver plate, so he's in a good mood tonight." He said with a low chuckle.

"The Spider? You mean the Black Widow? You mean he finally found that Russian whore who killed his brother?" The captain replied somewhat astounded. 

"That's right. You should have heard him on the phone. That bitch is in for a world of hurt." Their contact laughed.

Clint's heart stopped. Here, of all places, with these scumbags, he was finding out that Natasha's life was in danger? His vision went red and he exploded out from his hiding place dispatching the man on the far left with an arrow through his skull and rushing the others, drawing an arrow from his quiver as he ran and plunging it into the chest of the boat captain as he turned to see what had ended his companion's life so unexpectedly. He yanked the arrow from the captain's heart and whirled to bury it in the throat of the third man, turning just in time to knock the pistol out of the hand of the contact that seemed to know about the redhead. 

Clint caught the man across the jaw with a right hook, sending him sprawling on the wet pavement. He pounced on top of the smaller man, gripping his throat and barely resisting the urge to choke the life out of him, reminding himself that he needed the bastard till he could find out where Natasha was and what kind of trouble she was in.

"Who is Li Zhou and where does he have the Black Widow?" Clint growled, his eyes full of murder and grip iron tight on the man's throat. The contact whimpered and sputtered beneath him, barely managing to cough out a plea that he didn't know what the archer was talking about.

Clint slammed the man's head against the ground once, then drew his combat knife and held the wickedly sharp point millimeters from his eye. "Tell me where she is or I'll cut your fucking eyes out!" He yelled in the man's face.

A sharp pain in the side of Clint's neck made him flinch and he reared back, snatching a dart from his neck and cursing as his vision started swimming immediately. The man who had been nearly ready to piss himself thinking this random American was going to mutilate and kill him was now snickering as he raised himself up on his elbows.

"First rule in my business sir, never go to a deal without backup." He sneered evilly as Clint tried to get to his feet and failed, falling back to his knees and dropping his knife. The man who had shot him ambled into view, helping his partner up and slinging his tranquilizer gun over his shoulder. 

Clint had wanted to die after what he'd done to his partner, his lover, his best friend. Hell, he'd been basically been trying to go out with a bang ever since Mexico City. His old shark tank philosophy, but now...now that he knew Natasha was in danger? He couldn't let the sharks get him. Not until he'd saved his partner and killed every last bastard that had laid a finger on her. Now that it was too late, he had a reason to want to get out of this alive. The world spun and went dark; the last thing Barton was aware of was the wet, dirty concrete busting his lip open as he hit the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha and Clint are in deep. This is not good.

Natasha hated chemically induced sleep. It was a technique that the Red Room used more times than she cared to remember. She would go to sleep, waking to find she knew things she didn’t remember ever knowing before. She would wake up looking different than when she went to sleep. She would wake up in different places, with different people and on more than one occasion, she saw other girls go to sleep and never return. One of the biggest reasons she avoided the med labs at SHIELD was this. Anything was better than going to sleep and not knowing when or where or _if_ she would wake up. It took either Coulson or Clint to help her focus through it whenever such a procedure was necessary.

Right now, she’d happily go to sleep for Dr. Hollowitz at SHIELD. At least there, they had never damaged her. There, a chance existed that she would be okay. Right here and now, Natasha surmised as she looked around, there were very few chances of getting out of this in one piece, let alone alive.

She was in a large room that was solid concrete. The walls and floors were all concrete except for a floor drain that ran the length of the room down the middle. There were large bore, industrial hoses mounted in a few locations and based on the metallic tang that invaded her nostrils; this was at some point an abattoir. She was bound, her wrists tied together and over her head. Her ankles had been chained as well so she could not lift them more than a few inches. Her shoulders were aching, so it was safe to say she had likely been in this position for some time.

Centering herself, she did a quick mental inventory of the room and herself. Other than the small blade she had secreted in her bra which was missing, none of her clothing appeared to have been touched. She was even remarkably free of the kinds of bruising and scrapes she would have anticipated given that she had been abducted. That meant Li had plans for her or needed her as leverage. Natasha’s eyes narrowed – surely Li did not expect Fury to give anything in exchange for her. The Director tolerated her for her efficiency. He would not give up valuable assets to retrieve a monstrous girl who had cost him more headache than she was worth.

* * *

Clint struggled back to consciousness, his reality becoming less and less appealing as his senses flicked back on. He tasted the bitter copper of blood in his mouth from his split lip, felt the restraints biting into his wrists behind his back and the soreness in his legs from sitting tied to a hard metal chair for who knew how long. He opened his eyes to a nearly bare office of some kind, but the potent smell of old blood and bleach filling his nostrils told him he wasn't in an ordinary office building. Smelled more like a damn slaughterhouse, which did not bode well for him.

The archer tested each muscle group and his bonds. These guys were no pushovers, he wasn't going anywhere soon. He pushed down the surge of panic that rose as he remembered why he was here in the first place, Natasha. She had been working a high stakes job in Russia for months, and it seemed it was bigger than she, SHIELD or he had ever imagined. Now as far as he knew the woman he loved was in the hands of a vengeful human trafficker that had connections as high up as the Russian government with a personal vendetta against her. He was certain this Li Zhou would try to break her, but his spy was too strong. He would kill her when she didn't give him the satisfaction he was after, and Clint was trussed up in some Chinese slaughterhouse backroom. She might already be...

No. He couldn't go there, wouldn't go there. He had to stay in mission mode if he was going to get out of this alive and pull her ass out of the fire too. He was still her partner, and after everything he'd done, it was the least he could do.

He was pulled from his thoughts by the click of the door opening, and he let his body go slack, closing his eyes again. Maybe if they thought he was still out they'd let something slip he could use.

"Wake up, dog," a voice hissed, and in the next instant Clint's head whipped to the left from being struck across the face with a brass-coated punch. Clint groaned and spat crimson as his wounded lip split open again from the force of the blow. He slowly craned his head back up, meeting the smug expression of the wiry man he'd foolishly rushed at the dock in a haze of rage. Damn it, he was better than this. He ate morons like this for breakfast, and now he was at the mercy of this worm.

"So. Why did _you_ want to kill her?" The man asked, walking over to the only piece of furniture in the room, a dusty old desk, and picking up a pair of pliers. He gave them an experimental squeeze, smirking at the implement as he set it back down.

"What?" Clint growled, every fiber of his aching body wanting to kill this smug little bastard.

"Natalia Romanov. The Black Widow. Clearly you've been thirsting for her blood for a long time or you wouldn't have been able to trace her back to us. What did she do to you?" he asked, wandering back to stand in front of the agent.

"She drank at my bar and didn't pay her tab. What the hell do you care?" Clint scoffed, his mind racing through his partner's mission reports trying to draw any connections he could to her political mission in Moscow to a human slave trade in Hong Kong. The man barked with laughter.

"Well I'm afraid...you won't be collecting your due." He sneered, rummaging in his leather jacket pocket and extracting a folded white silk handkerchief as he spoke. Clint's eyes narrowed, focusing on what the man had in his hand.

"Bullshit. I've seen how you run your operation and you ass clowns couldn't take down the Widow so easily." He snapped, but beneath his anger a seed of doubt blossomed. A man with connections like Li Zhou was likely in a whole other class than these scrubs that had bagged him.

"Oh no, she was a gift. A gift my employer, Li Zhou, thoroughly enjoyed using up and tossing out." He cackled, and Clint's frayed control snapped.

"Shut up, you bastard!" Clint yelled, rage and despair blotting out the last bit of sense in his head. He didn't want to believe it, but what reason did these idiots have to lie to him? They didn't know who he was or his connection to the Russian spy. And besides, he was fate's favorite chew toy, why would it let up now? Of course the universe would take her from him before he had a chance to make things right. Before he could tell her that he never thought she was a monster, that he'd only let her walk out that day because he thought she was better off without him in her life...

"If it's any consolation, soon you'll be able to find her in Hell and collect what you're owed." He snickered, opening the white square of cloth, revealing an elegant, bloodied switchblade. The archer's storm cloud eyes widened. It was hers, one he'd given her years ago; he had never known her to be without it when working undercover. 

He shattered. A raw, broken scream ripped its way out of his throat and any thoughts of maintaining his cover were scattered to the wind. She was dead. And he could have stopped it.

* * *

Her head snapped up. _Clint?_ Her brow furrowed and her eyes went flat with fear. That was Clint’s voice. That was Clint _screaming_. If Li had Clint and knew anything about his connection to her, he would be merciless. She didn’t know what Li was playing but he clearly had recognized her and knew who she was. She had to get free. If Clint was here – if he was _here_ , she needed to get free and help him. He was a trained SHIELD agent and stubborn to boot. It would take a lot to get him to scream like that. She had told him over and over in the past that letting them know it hurts doesn’t matter – keeping the intel safe was what mattered, but he was obstinate. He would rather be broken than ever let them know it did more than tickle.

Her head snapped around, trying to find some kind of leverage. Something that would help her get free of the chains that currently bound her. She pulled harder, not caring now that she was making noise, as long as she got free of her bonds and could go find her partner. He _had_ to be okay – it was bad enough that she had gotten captured, but if they both went dark…she shuddered to think what could be ripped from their minds before they were disposed of.

She was still focused on the chains surrounding her wrists when the door behind her opened. Hair flying, she craned her neck around trying to catch a glimpse. It was Li. “Ms. Romanov, I see you are once again awake.” His oily gaze raked over her form as he walked a wide berth around her to lean against the wall facing her. “As well as active - something to be admired in a western woman. We prefer our women somewhat more manageable. Do you know why you are here, Ms. Romanov?”

Natasha’s eyes narrowed as she faced her insolent kidnapper, “No, Mr Li, I don’t. I was merely attending the concert with – “

Li cut her off abruptly with a solid smack to her left cheek. “Do not ever assume I am stupid, Ms. Romanov. I know exactly who you are, and while that great fool Valevich did not, I am no fool. You are the Black Widow. You are one of the greatest results of the Russian Red Room experiments. You are an assassin and now work for the Americans at SHIELD.”

Natasha looked at the Chinese man, schooling her face into the bland expression she wore so many times in the past during an interrogation. “And if I am? SHIELD has no issues with the Chinese and it has been decades since I did any work for the Room.”

Li backhanded her again, this time hard enough that the redhead saw stars and tasted blood in her mouth. “Do not be cute, Ms. Romanov. It’s what you did to my family between those two things that brought you here. When you were…freelancing…you took a job that involved killing a young Chinese man. Ms. Romanov, do you know how many families in China are permitted to violate the one child rule? Less than 100 in a country of a billion people. My _brother_ was one of your jobs when you were a freelancer. You lead him on and then slaughtered him.” His face twisted into a mockery of a smile, “You killed _my brother_ and there is nothing you can do or say that will make me not kill you like the whore you are. But...” He came over to her, grabbing her face between his fingers and pulling her to his eye-level, “I have surprise for you. I have someone I believe belongs to you.” Li pulled his hand away, wiping the blood from his fingertips with a silk handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. “I’ve been doing some reading on you. You normally work with a partner and I _had_ begun to wonder when I didn’t see him before. Yes, Ms. Romanov, I knew who you were long before tonight. But this way, I was able to take out that fat fool, Valevich, as well as yourself. Your partner was coming to _rescue_ you. He thought he could out-think me.”

“Natasha Romanov, I am going to do to you the closest thing I can think of to repay you for what you did to me. You killed my brother. I am going to kill your partner. Slowly. You will remain where you can hear the whole thing. When he is finally dead, he will be brought him here and I’ll hang him beside you until his corpse begins to rot. And when it has rotted enough that you cannot stand to be near it, I am going to put the pair of you in a box and put you on a slow container ship. No food, no water and it will be going somewhere far, far away. If you want to survive, you will have to eat the rotting carcass of your partner. If you can without it killing you,” he smiled without it ever once touching his eyes, “if you can, and you survive, then I will have my men hunt you down and I will do it all over again with someone else important to you. Ms. Romanov, I mean to make you suffer the way I did. You will beg for death before it ever happens and I will deny you even that mercy.”

The redhead’s white skin bleached even more so after this. Between Clint’s scream and this horrific threat, she knew she was fucked. No backup. Her partner about to be murdered, if he wasn’t already dead, and nothing – not even her monster – could stop it. If she had been capable, she would have cried.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the cavalry. Because we're both romantics at heart.
> 
> More of Littleblueartist and my collaborative RP. Any issue edits are mine. Sometimes, I think the two of us are a little too fond of hurting our muses.

"Well. What a very interesting reaction. Li Zhou told me I would find there was more to you than the violent mercenary I pegged you for. That bitch meant something to you, didn't she?" The man leaned in closer to Clint's bleeding face, a poisonous grin playing at his thin lips.

"No. I can see it in your eyes. She meant everything to you." He corrected himself, flinching back when the archer lashed out, trying to crack the man's nose in with his skull since he couldn't break free of his chains. "Well, that's just going to make my job even more fun." He struck Clint across the face and in the gut again and again, till he was panting from exertion and his hair was damp with sweat. 

Finally tired of using the agent as a human punching bag, he went back to the desk, tugging off his brass knuckles and setting them down. He picked up the tool he had toyed with earlier, an industrial pair of slip-joint pliers that had obviously seen heavy use.

"You're going to regret the day you crossed paths with the Widow. Li already wants you to suffer, but you killed my men, so I'll be adding my own little personal touch." He stalked back over to Clint, turning the tool over in his hands. 

"Fuck you." Clint snarled, far past the point of caring what they did to him now. 

"So you're an archer, right? You used arrows to kill my associates. Interesting weapon of choice, but elegant in its way, I suppose. I guess that means your hands are...indispensable to you." The trader chuckled, circling back behind his captive and suddenly the reasoning behind his hands being bound with chains threaded between each of Clint's fingers made sense. He couldn't even try to make a fist to protect himself. He felt the cold steel close around the second knuckle of his left pointer finger. 

"You know the Spider killed Li's brother."  _Snap._

"That's why he wanted her head on a plate."  _Snap._

"And it's why anyone close to her will be made to suffer like you are now."  _Snap._

Clint couldn't hold his rough screams of agony in as the man viciously broke each of his fingers. His captor's words hardly registered. He was already broken and now they were just kicking him while he was down. All he could think about was that he had let his lover, his partner, his best friend walk out and because he'd been to cowardly to face her, face what he'd done, now she was dead. 

Finally Clint couldn't scream anymore. His torturer finished off his last finger on his right hand, and the archer barely flinched. He was done, and all that was left was to wait for this little prick to get his kicks and finish the job.

* * *

The door to the concrete kill room swung open behind Natasha's captor, and a tiny crackling noise was all the warning Li Zhou had before the twin electrodes of a Taser hooked into the back of his suit jacket and the slave trader gurgled and sputtered as he hit the cold floor, wracked with spasms even a few seconds after he passed out.

"It figures that my first assignment after I got cleared for duty would be chasing after you two." The quiet smile in Phil Coulson's voice was something reserved only for his two best agents and closest friends. He tossed the discharged stun weapon onto Li Zhou's body, stepping over it to quickly and carefully unlock Natasha's bonds.

"Easy, easy..." Phil soothed Natasha as if she were a frightened child, seeing the raw pain and confusion in her wide blue eyes threatening to swallow her up. "Come on, let's get you safe and patched up. Then we can talk." He scooped the little redhead up, her blood, sweat and tears soiling his perpetually crisp black suit. Half a dozen SHIELD soldiers rushed into the room, gathering up Li Zhou's unconscious body and sweeping the room. Phil left the cleanup crew to their work, right now he had a broken hawk and a wounded spider to tend to. 

He carried agent Romanov out to the black unmarked van waiting for them, laying her on the stretcher in the back and making room for the field medical officer to examine the redhead. He waited till she slipped out of consciousness either from the stress or the pain medication the agent gave her, and then stepped out of the vehicle to check on his other agent who was being carried out to the second van on a gurney. Physically the archer looked to be in worse condition, he was already out cold as they loaded him up.

Coulson extracted his phone and hit the first contact on his speed dial, "Sir? I have them. The facility is secure. Yes sir." He ended the call and put the device back in his suit pocket. Phil knew his agents better than anyone, better than they knew themselves. From what he'd read of Natasha's mission files starting the day she came back to Fury after New York looking for something to do, and what he had gleaned from the rather colorful reports of over a dozen handlers concerning Barton's escapades, he had a pretty good idea of just how off the rails his friends were.

Of course Barton had hopped on that damn boat after leaving those captives for Reynolds to clean up. Of course Natasha had ignored her temporary handler's emergency message about Li Zhou before leaving with her mark. Li Zhou, who was high on SHIELD's greatest hits list had his hands in every human trafficking deal in Asia wouldn't pass up the opportunity for revenge. That was why Coulson didn't take any chances and stormed the facility with three dozen men. It went off without a hitch, like his plans tended to do.

The only real question left was what had happened between the Hawk and the Widow to throw them so far off their game? Phil had a hunch, and he wasn't normally a gambling man, but this was a risk he had to take if he wanted to complete his mission of reviving Strike Team Delta.

* * *

It was dark. Her arms ached and she was terrified. More than she had been in years. It was the kind of terror that she remembered unfondly from her days in the Red Room. Peering around her, there wasn’t even the smallest light to try to see by. Wherever she was, it was pitch black. She was alone and in the dark, like when she was small and was punished.

_Natasha_.

_Clint_? That was Clint’s voice, but she couldn’t make out where it was coming from. “Barton? Barton, where are you?” she called out, her voice pitched low so as not to attract whatever might be waiting in the dark.

_Nat_.

“Clint, I’m here but I can’t see you. You have to keep talking – I’ll try to find you, but I can’t see a thing.”

_Tasha_.

Okay, this was getting both annoying and frightening. His voice was getting weaker with each call. The pain in his voice was getting stronger. She had to find him. She had to get to him before whatever was happening to him –

**_TASHA!_ **

Natasha’s eyes slammed open as the Clint in her dreams screamed. For a moment, she was lost in the white light of the med lab she was in and the memory of the utter darkness she had been in moments before. Blinking, she shook her head slightly to clear it. Her arms were still stiff but she was in no pain. She took a few breaths to calm and center herself. Li had turned out to be the brother of an old target of hers and had a grudge. He had drugged her and kidnapped her. He had … bohze moi … he had somehow gotten his hands on Clint and had promised to kill him. She could hear him screaming in a nearby room – she had struggled and fought to make her way free and between the drugs in her system and the punches to the head by Li, she was less than herself when she had been rescued….

She jerked her head to the side as she realised she was not alone. He was there…Clint was there. He was there and breathing and — oh god, his hands. They were completely encased in casts. Li’s men had broken his hands. She pushed a wave of rage down as she swung her legs off the edge of her gurney and walked over to where he was sleeping. The redhead sank to her knees, her forehead resting against the bed next to her archer’s damaged hands. “I’m so sorry, Clint. I’m so sorry. How the hell did you wind up there? You weren’t supposed to be there. Last I knew you were in Mexico. How did you wind up in a Chinese hellhole _getting your hands broken_ while your useless partner couldn’t do anything?”

She stopped and looked up at his face, still placid in drug induced sleep. “How did we get here, Barton?” She could tell they were in a SHIELD facility – that much was evident from the surroundings. She searched her memory and started when she recognized the voice and face behind the suit and the Taser. But that didn’t make any sense. Phil Coulson was dead. He couldn’t have rescued them. The assassin tensed, looking at the large mirror at the foot of their beds and called out, “Okay, whoever is watching, I need some answers.”

Phil looked over his agents' charts from behind the one way glass in the observation room adjoining the medical suite both of them were currently recovering in. Considering the mess they'd just been in he felt it would be best if the first thing either of them saw when they woke up would be... Each other. Natasha had come out relatively unscathed, a few bumps and bruises and some dehydration.

Clint however, had paid for his rashness rather harshly. Four bruised ribs, a black eye, 87 stitches all told over various parts of him, and his hands. Every finger had been broken at the second knuckle and the index and middle fingers on his left hand had been broken at the third knuckle as well. Needless to say it was going to be a while before he could lace up his own boots, let alone fire his bow.

Coulson glanced up from their medical reports when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The spy was awake and had crossed the room to Barton's bedside. His heart clenched at her expression as she took in the state of her partner's hands, kneeling down and speaking too softly for him to hear her. After a moment she stood, and ever the sharp professional, realized she was being observed and demanded answers.

Phil unconsciously straightened the knot of his tie despite it being perfectly straight to begin with. Agent Romanov had been fairly out of it from the drugs and the blow to her head when he'd extracted her, it was possible she still didn't even know it had been him who had gotten them out. But either way, he'd known this day was coming. He just hadn't expected it to make him feel like a child on the first day of school.

Schooling his expression into something that resembled professional calm, Coulson set down the files and walked from the observation room to fill the open doorway of the medical suite. He met Natasha's bottomless blue gaze straight on, nodding slightly at her.

"Hello Natasha. I expect I can provide you with at least some of the answers you need." He said softly, stepping further into the room.

“Phil?” The redhead’s eyes widened. “Rumours of your death appear to have been exaggerated.” She stood between the older agent and her unconscious partner. Face falling back to a studied coolness, she examined Coulson’s expression. He was almost her equal when it came to remaining calm in just about any circumstance but he was almost too cool now. She blinked, taking in his overly neat form. If she didn’t know better, she would say he was nervous.

 “So you _were_ there. How did you track us to Li’s hideout? I didn’t manage to get to my transmitter before I was taken. Barton still had his?” She slid her hand onto the sleeping archer’s thigh. Even under the thin sheet, she could feel the warm pulse of his body, reassuring her that he was still with her, still very much alive and _here._

The corner of Coulson's mouth tugged up a bit at her words. "Yeah, well they weren't rumors, at least not for a little while. Yes, I tracked Barton's signal, after what he did in Mexico City, the last four handlers he's had were given instructions to place as many transmitters on him as possible. He found most of them and destroyed them as he went, but I recommended to Reynolds they hide one in an arrow head, and well...as you know, he didn't notice that one." The handler's soft gaze flickered to the slumbering archer and back up to the spy's face. 

Red hair slid in front of her face as she bowed her head. Natasha shook slightly as she tried to absorb everything that had happened. After two months of not seeing him, Clint Barton was back in her life and because of her he was lying in a hospital gurney with busted hands and gods knows what else. After two months of being dead, Phil Coulson was alive and standing in front of her like a schoolboy trying to look like nothing was up.

Despite her flaming curls obscuring part of her face, Coulson saw her start to crumble. The simple, pure hurt in her voice when she spoke again made the agent remember that Natasha was a woman who had never been a child with a father that had come to comfort her when she was hurt or frightened. She didn't know how to process finding again what had been lost. 

“Why, Phil? Why did you let us believe you were dead?” Natasha asked softly. She blinked hard. She would not cry. What she need was to understand what was happening and the interrogator in her took over. Her icy calm that allowed her to face Loki and hundreds of lesser bad men over the years possessed her now. Lifting her head, she looked at Phil. Having a care not to hurt him further, the little assassin pulled herself on to the end of Barton’s bed, next to his legs, her hand still possessively resting over him.

"They didn't think I'd survive the artificial heart transplant. They put me in a coma for a few weeks, and only Fury and the doctors knew I was plugged into a wall. That part I agreed with, I wouldn't have wanted you to deal with my death twice in as many weeks." Coulson's eyes fell to the tops of his polished shoes and he took a deep breath. 

"But after I woke up, the Director determined it would be better for all of you to wait until I was back up to 100% before breaking the news. With everything you all have been dealing with since New York, adding worrying about my recovery to the list was a burden you didn't need to carry. I had a little more trouble agreeing with that part. That's why I wanted to see this mission through. I wanted to bring you two home, personally. I figure it's the least I can do for you after keeping you in the dark like that." He finished, meeting her eyes again, ready to accept her reaction no matter what it might be.

Natasha turned over what Coulson said in her mind. The pragmatism of remaining “dead” until such time as the transplant took made sense, difficult as it may be for the more emotional parts of her to accept. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, using the time to clear her mind of reactions and stay present and focused. “I had to tell Clint that you were dead. We didn’t know until later that it was Loki who killed you, not the team that he had led onto the helicarrier. Hardest thing I have ever done is keep him from hating himself because he had killed you.”

Licking her lower lip, she stared into his blue eyes. What he said was true. She could taste the truth of his words, even if the decisions that led them to where they were would not have been hers. “At least you came and told us – me. Barton’s not awake and I can’t guarantee what his reaction will be. I suspect that his hands are already in casts will be a good thing for this only. Hard to punch someone with broken hands.”

The redhead shook her head slightly. Despite everything that had happened, this was still the best friend she had ever had, save the man she was sitting next to. One of the few people in the world she could call a friend. He was her superior, her friend and someone, at least in part if she was being honest, she had gone to war over. A small smile tipped her mouth upwards. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Phil. Don’t do that again. I won’t be as forgiving the next time.”

Phil had the decency to look a little sheepish, nodding his head and resisting the urge to step closer and coddle her as she settled herself on the end of Barton's bed. They both knew she really shouldn't be upright yet in her condition, but this was Natasha Romanov, Phil knew better than to tell her to get back in her own bed and get some rest.

Her head started to swim a little as she sat. She curled her legs up next to her, lying down in the small strip of space between the archer and the edge of the bed, resting on her elbow. “Mexico. You said you were tracking him since the events in Mexico. You’ll have to catch me up, Phil. What happened in Mexico?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil brings Nat up to speed and Nat does the same for Clint.

Coulson considered his answer concerning Barton's little escapade in Mexico. He had found red flag after red flag reading the last couple months of the Hawk's activities, disappointed in his peers that he'd literally had to come back from the dead to point out to his superiors that something was eating their best marksman and tracker alive. Of course normally Natasha would have kept a chain reaction like this from ever getting out of the gate, but Phil suspected those two facts were directly connected.

"Honestly, it was the first time I've seen Barton actually tip the scale that he's kept in balance all these years the wrong way. He caused more trouble than he was worth to the organization. I don't understand it. He doesn't make those kinds of calls. I know what Loki did to him, to all of us, was hard on him. But Clint isn't the type to jump off a ledge, well, not without a plan anyway." Phil looked pointedly at the redhead; certain now from the emotion she couldn't quite keep out of her eyes that she knew exactly what had caused Hawkeye's sense of self-preservation to take a nose dive these past couple months.

A soft groan behind them made both seasoned agents nearly jump out of their skin. Clint was stirring, and Phil made a quick judgement call. "I'll be back to check on you two later. For now... Just take a moment to sort things with him. Get some rest if you can, all right?" The handler nodded at the little redhead, quickly backing out of the room before the archer came fully awake.

Clint thought he could hear muffled voices as he waded through the fog of drug induced slumber. The first thing that crystallized in his waking mind was that he couldn't move his hands... A jolt of panic made his chest tight and he struggled up into a sitting position, growling in pain as his battered torso objected to the sudden moment. A soft hand pressed back on his chest and he blinked rapidly, realizing there was someone just beside him and they were telling him to lie down.

"What the hell..." Clint slurred, shaking his head a little to clear the last of the medication fog. Where was he and why was he alive? Why wouldn't his hands move? Why...

His vision finally clarified. Natasha was sitting before him, looking like she was about to scream, cry or laugh he couldn't decide, but...she was here. She was alive. 

"Tasha..." Clint's voice was raw and unabashedly astounded. He lifted his hand to touch her face and confirm she was real, and he saw that his hand was entirely encased in a hard bandage. He looked from his ruined hand and back to her face, struggling to draw a breath as tears rolled freely down his partner's cheeks. He could see the apology forming in her eyes and he jolted forward.

"Don't you  _dare_ -" He cut her off, sealing his lips to hers and kissing her desperately. It was rough, ungraceful and ravenous; it begged for everything and yet asked for nothing. Nothing else mattered to him in that moment other than that she was alive and here with him. 

Heart hammering in her chest, his mouth on her, Natasha started to cry…and laugh…and cling to her partner with both hands, desperate to be gentle with him even if he refused to be gentle himself. Tears rolling down her face, gasping for air between nips and tongues exploring each other again, desperate with relief that finally, her universe was good again. _He_ was back at her side again. Clint…Barton…you’re going to hurt yourself,” she gasped between kisses, refusing to let his lips leave hers. Her long fingers reached up to enmesh themselves in his hair and run the hard lines of his back. Hiccupping with relief that he was alive, that he still wanted her, that he was _here_ , Natasha finally pulled away, just far enough to rest her forehead against his and gently kiss the edges of his mouth, trace the lines of his jaw with her fingertips and breath in the warm male scent that was all him.

“Why the hell did you follow me, Clint? You’re supposed to be in Mexico. You … I thought you hated me,” her voice trailed off as she faced her single biggest fear. “I mean, I …. You…you might hate me anyway.” She pulled away enough to be able to focus on his face, never letting her hands stop caressing his face and hair and every part she could touch. If she was wrong, if he kissed her because he was grateful they were out, she had to have as much as she could before it was ripped away again.

“I just need you to know, Clint. The things I said that night – I had to. When I realised that I was only partially right – that you were never going to be able to break the bond that the Tesseract had still over you with pleasure alone, I gave you the one tool I know you could use to break it – to shatter it. I hated every single moment of it, but I knew if I let you use the pain of being rejected, that you could take that and destroy that hold it had on you. The _only_ way I knew to do that was to convince you I was rejecting you. I had to lie to you to be able to give you that strength.” Her heart cracked as she waited for his reply, terrified that she would be right. That he would never forgive her for that betrayal, however justified it may have seemed to her at the time. Withdrawing into a curtain of her own hair, she whispered, “I hope you can forgive me. For everything.”

After _everything_ , he was finally whole. She leaned in and kissed him.

Clint had listened to her intently, his throat tight and his eyes burning with emotion. Her words rushed out of her like water and near the end he was afraid she would break down completely. But when she leaned in and kissed him once more, so gently, so sweetly, he knew they were going to be all right. Even after everything he'd put her through, she still wanted him, and that was all he needed. Everything else could be in shambles, but they would pick up the pieces together.

"Tasha, I'm the one who should be asking you for forgiveness... I never should have let you go. I didn't hate you; I hated what I'd done to you. I couldn't sleep without seeing that night. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to call, to go after you and drag your ass home with me kicking and screaming if I had to. But I...I just...." Clint's voice dwindled down to nothing, still feeling the gut-wrenching pain of thinking he had lost her forever.

“Dragged my ass home?” she asked, smiling in spite of herself. “Clint, that would not have been wise – Not unless…” her voice faltered as she swallowed the grin forming on her face as her partner continued.

Unable to continue that particular thought, the archer shifted gears before he gave in to the unshed tears burning in his throat. "I...sort of got banned from Mexico. Permanently," his eyebrows quirked up and despite the emotion close to the surface he chuckled. "Hope you don't have your heart set on a getaway to Acapulco." He leaned forward and pressed his brow to hers again; now that he had her back he wasn't going to waste a single word, a single touch. 

“Banned. Permanently. What, exactly, did you do there, Barton? I mean, there are other beaches. Even in somewhere warmer than New York State,” she shook her head. She went over in her head again just what he could have possibly done to get himself _banned_ from an entire country. She cataloged it as something they would have further discussion about – later.

"I got reassigned to shadow a trafficking cartel out of Hong Kong. Turns out they were connected to that Li Zhou bastard and when I overheard them gloating about catching a spider, well..." He grinned at her, knowing she knew better than to tell him he shouldn't have gone after her. "That little bastard really got my number, didn't he?" Clint looked down at his encased hands, internally groaning at what his recovery process would entail. He refused to entertain thoughts that anything other than a complete recovery was possible, no matter how grueling it might be.

“Li…ah.” Her eyebrow quirked as she considered his words. “I don’t know if it is a good thing or a bad thing that I may have ignored my handler’s last message. If he had told me that you were in the country, I may have changed my plans for the evening. If I had, you might have escaped having your hands broken.” She cradled his poor bound hands as she spoke, “then again, if I had, I wouldn’t be here.” She swallowed hard, “As horrible as this may sound, I think I’d do anything to be with you right now.”

"Nat, I thought you were dead. I thought I was dead. I'm not complaining, but how the hell did we get out of there?" The archer asked quietly, though for all he knew she didn't know who had pulled their asses out of the fire either. 

He had thought her dead. That made a certain amount of sense. Given what Natasha knew now, if he had thought she was alive, he would have fought them to get to her. Only despair would have let him howl as they broke his body. The little redhead closed her eyes and breathed hard through her nose to clear her mind of the images that flooded her brain at the idea of his being tortured and thinking she had died. She opened them abruptly, fixing her mind with the vision of him – battered and broken but _here._ Once again, he survived and she cherished that ability of his to survive and make his way back to her.

“Oh. That,” she blinked rapidly at his question. “It may be a long story. Just how clear is your head anyway?” She looked at him, kissing the corner of his mouth lightly before she pulled back again, focusing on his eyes as her mouth worked, trying to find the right words. “Do you believe in miracles, Barton?” She huffed a small laugh, blinking slowly, with a pained expression on her face but her lips curved upwards, “because the answer to your question requires you believing in miracles. Coulson. Coulson is the reason we’re back. He’s alive. He rescued us.” The grin on her face spread at the ludicrous nature of what she was saying, “He tracked your ass and saved us both.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil, Natasha & Clint talk. Coulson establishes that he's known these two too well and too long.

The archer's heart was just starting to return to a more regular pace as Natasha softly kissed him, then she started talking about miracles and she dropped the last name he ever would have expected to hear. He blinked slowly, wondering for a second if he was still passed out in the slaughterhouse near death and this was all something his mind had manufactured to ease his passing. But he hurt too damn much for this to be a dream, and Nat wouldn't lie or be mistaken about something like this.

"Coulson? But I..." Barton bit down on his next words to keep them from forming, though he could tell by the look on her face that she knew he was going to say,  _I killed him_. He had never forgiven himself for causing his only other true friend's death. Not really. Natasha, Phil and to a certain extent Fury were the closest people to family Clint had. It took a moment for his brain to process her answer then it caused more lights to turn on.

"That means he's here then? Right now?" His silver eyes swept the room as if he expected an apparition of his handler to suddenly appear out of thin air. "Jesus fucking Christ..." He muttered under his breath, swinging his legs out to rest on the floor and hauling himself up, taking a couple experimental steps to see how groggy he was from the morphine and finding that he was fairly steady, looked back down at his partner sitting on the end of his bed.

"Nat, where is he?" The Hawk asked with a note of finality in his voice.

The redhead watched her partner. His grey eyes were once again clouded with conflicting emotions. The only thing she could do was be painfully and utterly honest. She shifted, legs off the end of the gurney, eyes gauging her partner. He was steady enough but she wanted to be ready to move if something happened to him. Blue eyes drifting to his hands – it wasn’t like he could really catch himself if he fell.

“If I had to guess, Clint, I’d say he was on the other side of the mirror, if he hasn’t disappeared further to give us some privacy. Barton, I know this is a lot, but _you didn’t kill him_. I keep telling you – what happened – the blame lies squarely on Loki.” She stood up, crossing the distance to reach around his body, cradling her cheek in the broad expanse of his back between his shoulder blades. Her arms wrapped around his chest and her small, pale hands crossed and pressed open against his pectorals, thumbs caressing him gently. “Clint, he told me a little about what happened. He told me that you went off the rails a little. He told me that you were destroying your handlers’ transmitters. If you want to swallow blame for Coulson, that means I am to blame for your hands. I hurt you badly enough that you went AWOL and nearly got yourself killed. I’m supposed to be your partner and look,” Natasha’s hands slid down his body to cradle his bandaged hands again, “look at what happened. What I wasn’t there to stop. Phil stopped it, Clint.”

Clint craned his head down and sighed as she spoke. He wanted to argue with her about his hands but he realized she was just using that to point out that he should let go of the blame he was carrying for what happened while he was enthralled by the Tesseract's power.

She released him enough to dip under one of his arms and brought her own up to rest against his chest, letting her cup his face in both hands, pulling her archer’s eyes to meet her own. Blue met stormy grey and she kissed him. He closed his eyes, savoring her as she did so, every touch a priceless gift after thinking she had been lost to him forever.

 “They put him in a coma, Clint. When he came out of it, they told him that they didn’t know if his transplant would take. He didn’t tell us because to lose him twice? He figured that would hurt more than either of us needed.” Her lips quirked in a wry smile, “Phil didn’t know what we were doing to ourselves by that point,” she added. “He came for us when he realised we were in trouble. And you, crazy, wonderful, beautiful man, are the one who he was able to track. There was a tracking device you didn’t catch. We’re alive because of that and because Coulson lives.”

"I missed one? Damn I really have been off my game lately. Though I guess in this case it was for the best." He grinned crookedly at her, wrapping his arms awkwardly around her petite frame. It felt strange not being able to use his hands to grip her, but it would have to do for now. "Off the rails? Nah the suits just got spoiled when I partnered with you. I think Coulson just forgot what a pain in the ass I was before you came along and straightened me out." He winked at her, keeping his tone light. It was bullshit and she knew it, but he didn't want to think about the past few weeks and how many times he had jumped in the shark tank not expecting to get back out again. Not now. Not when he had her here alive and whole in his arms.

"The mirror?" His smile bent, craning his head up and finally noticing the observation panel looking into their room. His silver eyes widened and his heart started pounding, unconsciously he held his partner closer. He had trusted Phil Coulson with everything, but then again he had trusted that he was dead, and he wasn't. If the handler had been watching their entire exchange, there wasn't exactly much, much left to the imagination concerning what their relationship had become. Now that Clint had Natasha back, he was prepared to protect what they had, from absolutely everyone. He wouldn't lose her again.

Natasha looked at her partner, her hands on his chest telling her what he wouldn’t. The pain medication had dulled his normal control – his heart was pounding at the mention of Phil and she caught his look towards the mirror. Her cool fingertips caught the edge of his jaw and turned his face back to her. Eventually even his eyes shifted from their contemplation of the glass and returned, storm-grey and tight at the edges.

“I’m not letting you go, Barton. I don’t care what SHIELD’s fraternization regulations are. We’re Avengers now. If they want to get difficult about it, I’m sure we will be able to find a new home.” The redhead lifted her chin defiantly, “No – not a new home – just a different place to bunk down. _You_ have been my home for so long.” She nodded firmly, “So that’s that.”

She pulled him gently back towards the gurney. “Come. Sit with me.” She tossed a look at the glass, “You know he’ll get here when the time is right and not a moment before. It’s not like it is different from any other time. It’s Coulson.” She hopped back up on the bed, feet dangling over the edge and pulled her partner to her.

Clint allowed his redheaded partner to tug him back towards the bed but refused to sit back down. It wasn't pure stubbornness though that was part of it; the simple fact was that the double hit of the two people he loved dearest being alive when he thought them dead had pumped him full of so much nervous energy that he didn't think he could've sat still if he tried. 

His slightly clammy brow rested against her paler-than-usual forehead, grey eyes staring into clear blue. His mouth worked but she pressed three fingers against his lips, silencing him. “Just hear him out, Clint.” She glanced down and to his hands again before returning her gaze to him, licking her lip and looking wryly at him. “I suspect you and I were not the only ones compromised recently.”

He pressed his brow to hers and tried to tell her that this was most definitely different from any other time, but she hushed him and he didn't insist on saying anything more. Her words forced him to consider that it likely hadn't been a walk in the park for Phil to play dead all this time.

Phil was a lot of things, and he acknowledged that he had his faults, though he had never counted cowardice among his flaws. But when the archer looked up from his redheaded partner and unknowingly locked eyes with him through the one-way glass, the handler felt his throat close up. He felt guilty for observing such a private exchange between the assassins, but then again neither of them had exactly thought to make sure they weren't being watched before they started broadcasting their obviously intimate relationship with every look, word and touch. Someone had to make sure they weren't interrupted.

He had been out of the game for a while, but he was still their handler. It was his duty to cover them, pick up their slack, and clean up their messes. And it seemed his two favorite agents had gotten themselves into quite the mess while he was gone. He was just doing his job, and he was the best at what he did. 

Frankly it didn't surprise him that they had taken this turn. What did surprise him was that they had allowed their personal relationship issues to snowball into erratic behavior and mistakes in the field that had nearly cost them their lives. There had to be something else, something more to it that had happened right after New York to start such a perilous chain reaction that landed them here.

Phil swallowed his nerves and squared his shoulders, figuring there was no point in stalling. 

"Did you really have to pull your IV out, Barton? You know those things aren't just for decoration." A low voice from the doorway made both agents come back to the reality outside the two of them. Clint straightened but pointedly didn't back out of the redhead's space, making it clear without words that he could give a damn what the handler thought of them being together.

"Yeah well, apparently headstones are just for show." Clint shot back, knowing it wasn't fair but unable to swallow all of the hurt and anger that had flared up inside him.

Phil pursed his lips and nodded, stepping further into the hospital room and shutting the door behind him. "I suppose I deserved that." He said quietly, coming to stand at the foot of the bed. The two men stood silently for a moment, the air between them heavy.

Clint sighed and looked down at his bandaged hands that Natasha was gently cradling. "No, you didn't. But that doesn't usually stop me." The archer smiled, forcing his shoulders to relax and be grateful that his oldest friend was alive. Phil chuckled and shrugged slightly, and the tension in the room dissipated.

Natasha rolled her eyes as the two agents went through their masculine display of who had to apologize to whom and how. For all that Barton claimed that women had elaborate protocols for apology and acceptance, it was nothing compared to what Clint & Phil were up to now. It was few words – they had always been a circumspect pair – but she was grateful when the mood of the room had lightened.

“Barton, be good or I’ll help him. Phil, you know neither of us is particularly good with medical. Given the number of shocks to his system, I think Clint is fine. If you’re done making up, I would like someone to explain to me why I shouldn’t be very cross with both of you. Phil, for making me think you were dead and Clint for nearly becoming so?”

The redhead stared, bemused, at the two men who meant so much to her. Phil would never be what Clint was in her world, but he was the only man she came as close to trusting after Barton. For someone who had trust issues with most people, thanks to job training and in-field vantages, that these men meant anything to her was a continual source of confusion.

Hopping off the bed, since the archer wasn’t looking like he would use it in the next several hours, she wormed her way into the circle of his arms, cementing for Phil’s benefit their new status when she leaned up and kissed Hawkeye. At some point, they’d also have to tell Phil about what had happened – okay _most_ of what happened – she didn’t need to tell him that things had changed between her and Barton. Phil was an intelligent man. She leveled a steady gaze at him from within Clint’s arms. Surely he was intelligent enough to know that when the Black Widow mated, finally, it was for life.

Clint gathered his partner against him as best he could considering the casts on his hands, returning her kiss lightly and internally chuckling at the little redhead's posturing. He was glad she had fallen on the side of revealing what they were to Coulson though; he honestly hadn't expected such an open display from her. To call Natasha Romanov emotionally guarded was about the most gross understatement in the book.

The archer raised his eyebrows at the senior agent when their eyes met once more, almost daring him to comment on their relationship. Phil simply shrugged again. "It's about time." He said bluntly, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth when both agents had to quickly cover their fluster at his words.

"What? I've been your handler for how long? Watching you two dance around each other all these years has given me more stress headaches than the job." Phil didn't bother to stifle the full on laugh that bubbled up at the slight blush that graced Natasha's cheeks. It was the first time he'd laughed in...God… in far too long.

Clint couldn't help the grin that spread over his face in spite of himself. Sure they could hide from themselves and the rest of the world, but it had been stupid to think that their friend who had pulled them out of their own heads more times than he could count would miss the forest for the trees.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm glad we can be a source of amusement for you, Coulson." The archer responded with a good-natured laugh. The handler nodded and checked his watch.

"It's nearly three in the morning, so try to get some rest. We'll talk more tomorrow, our flight is at noon. Natasha, you can get him hooked back up again right? I don't have to call a nurse?" Phil glanced at the cart full of medical supplies near Barton's bed. "Don't." Coulson held up his hand before Clint had a chance to protest. "Your hands are a mess, Barton. You need what's in that bag." He pointed at the IV bag suspended over the archer's bed.

Clint sighed, not bothering to argue with his handler. He refused to admit it but he was already regretting being upright for this long. He was sure it was only a matter of time before he'd be missing the morphine in his system no matter how much he hated being on any kind of pain medication. The senior agent said good night and left, shutting the door behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting ready to go home

The archer looked back down at his partner who was all but glued to his front. He grinned crookedly at her, still a little in awe that not only had he awoke to find himself alive, but the two people he cared most about were alive as well. His smile bent when he saw moisture welling up in her clear blue eyes, and he bent to softly kiss the corner of her full pout.

"Hey. I'm right here." He murmured, knowing they had quite a project in front of them. But he was confident now that they could build something new out of their shattered pieces. All they needed was each other. He instinctively tried to press his hands into her back, but the cumbersome bandages and twinges of pain served as a harsh reminder of his current limitations. "Fuck, I'm sorry..." He whispered, intending the words for his clumsy attempt at holding her but once the words slipped out he couldn't stop there.

"I'm sorry Natasha, God I'm so sorry..." He kissed her deeply, trying to make up for every single time he'd wanted to call her, to go to her, to mend things and hadn't. He had let her go once; he would never make that mistake again.

“Don’t. Don’t even start, Barton.” Natasha’s eyes hardened as she pushed the archer back towards his gurney. “Don’t you dare apologize. What’s done is done. You are back here and _alive_. That is all I care about.” The set of her body and the look her face told Clint that right now, what he needed to do was listen to her because she was having none of his nonsense and would hurt him more if he didn’t listen.

Clint backpedaled to his gurney at the redhead's behest and carefully stretched out on it, trying to avoid jostling his abused body as much as possible. Natasha got his IV hooked back up to his arm as quick and neat as could be; considering how many times they had played medic for each other over the years they could each perform most basic medical procedures with their eyes closed.

She had spent entirely too much time over the years taking turns with him patching each of them up that sliding the IV needle back into his large veins was a piece of cake. The fact that the pinched expression on his face eased after a few minutes confirmed to her that Coulson was right. Clint had needed to take his medicine like a grown man. She looked at the prone archer, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly.

He relaxed almost instantly as the sturdy pain meds began circulating in his system again, blurring his thoughts at the edges. Normally, he found the fog of being medicated unacceptable, usually opting to deal with the pain and remain sharp. But he knew with the state of his hands he needed to make an exception, and besides he had his partner watching his back again so it didn't worry him too much.

The archer really was a bit of a mess. Besides the casts on both hands, there was the black eye, swelling it not enough to bring it closed by surely messing with his usual acuity. There were bruising on his chest indicated his ribs had been worked over. Miscellaneous other bruises, contusions and scrapes and that didn’t count the multitude of stitches that were everywhere. Natasha had to close her eyes for a moment and remind herself – the worst part was over. They had been found in time. Barton was in medical care. They were together and _Phil Coulson_ was on their side. She shook her head slightly as she absorbed that last tidbit.

Letting go of her partner, she limped back to her own gurney.

He started to protest like a kicked dog when Natasha left his side, not wanting her out of reach for even a moment after being without her for so long. Rolling her eyes at the prone archer, the redhead said, “Patience, Barton. All will be clear in a moment.” He watched with a slight grin on his lips as she fashioned their separate hospital beds into something close to a double. She unlocked both the inner guards and dropped a blanket in the lower space between them, functionally turning it into something two people might able to sleep, albeit carefully, together in. His heartbeat immediately evened out as soon as she settled in next to him on her side of the bed. The archer would have laughed at his childishness if he wasn't so relieved that his lover was alive and next to him once more.

“You need space. If I climb in that gurney with you, there won’t be enough and who knows what new damage could happen to you. I’ll be right here,” she bit her lip and smiled a tiny smile at him, “just in case you have nightmares or anything.”

She tucked her pillow into a more comfortable shape as she shifted to her side, sliding closer to him. The room darkened, likely Phil’s doing behind whatever pane of glass or monitoring screen he was using. Natasha gave in to her need to feel him one more time before they both tried to sleep and reached out pale finger to trace his unbruised eye and down the line of his jaw, scruff scratching at her fingertips.

“Clint. Rest and mend, my love.” Knowing her partner – knowing her _lover_ , the assassin added one last slightly saucy note, “I have plans for you when you’re healed. Don’t let me down.” She leaned in and kissed him, mostly sweet but with a little swipe of her tongue along his lips to remind him that he _needed_ to get better because at the end of the day, teasing Barton was something that was as much them, Hawkeye and Black Widow, as it was them, Clint and Nat.

He chuckled at her words, returning her kiss with as much heat as he could muster, but in his current wounded and drugged state it wasn't really up to his usual standards. "These past two months have been the longest of my life. Trust me, you're not the only one with plans." He replied, shifting his head on the pillow and groaning a little in the back of his throat as he adjusted his sore shoulders and neck without the aid of his hands. This was going to be the most frustrating downtime from an injury to date by far, and Clint Barton was well known for the creative and outlandish ways he managed to get hurt.

"Nat?" He said softly into the darkness of the room. She hummed inquisitively in response. He could hear by the cadence of her breathing that she was near sleep already, not surprising considering everything she had been through physically and emotionally in the past 48 hours, not to mention the past several weeks. He was crashing fast too.

"I won't let you go again. Ever. You're gonna have to put me down if you want to get rid of me now." He chuckled sleepily, moving his arm to rest it against her hip. A frustrated little noise slipped from his throat. "Damn I wish I could just touch you..." He slurred, the meds pulling him further away from consciousness. She spoke softly to him, but he didn't understand the words. Still just the sound of her voice and her slight weight shifting beside him was comforting. He drifted off and didn't wake again till it was nearly time for their plane to leave.

* * *

Late morning sunlight flooded her eyes with light, even under closed lids. Natasha awoke and her eyelids fluttered open to find she was strapped in her gurney and both she and Clint were being wheeled, side by side, towards a waiting jet. A familiar dark suit walked between the two gurneys and as she twitched to check on her partner, Coulson spoke just loud enough to be heard.

“Natasha, Barton’s going to be okay. He’ll need a lot of work and he’ll have to take care not to exert himself but he should be fine. We’ll be back in New York in about 14 hours. Rest. We’ve got this.”

The redhead couldn’t let it lie at that. She trusted Coulson almost as much as she trusted Clint but almost was the difference between Hawkeye’s aim and anyone else’s. “I understand that, Phil, but you know as well as I do that Clint is about as likely to rest and not exert himself as Stark is of developing a bashful side. How are you planning on ensuring that he does this without functionally doping him stupid between now and the start of physiotherapy? I can think of a few ways I would do it if I were you but…”

The handler shook slight, almost as if he was laughing at her. Natasha raised an eyebrow as she realised that in fact, yes, Coulson _was_ laughing at her. She looked at him, squirming under the restrictive band, and cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t plan on splitting us up, do you?”

“No, Natasha. I got the message loud and clear last night. I’ve already submitted a priority request to set up the appropriate medical gear at your apartment. You’re going to be playing nursemaid. The report states quite clearly that you are both suffering from mild to moderate PTSD based on torture at Li Zhou’s hands and while temporary, you both require the presence of the other to prevent…episodes from happening. Mostly the truth and something the Director can accept and not have to look further into.” Phil’s face softened slightly as he glanced down at Natasha, removing his sunglasses, “Natasha, I’m going to be relying on you to get him through this. They did a number on his hands. You are right, he’s unlikely to rest. I need you to make him. Don’t let him try anything stupid. Let the medicals I’ll be sending in to check up on him. I’ll get them to give you his physiotherapy schedule. Make him stick to it.” He sighed, “You’re not doing terribly well either, so I want you to take it easy too. I’ve made the appropriate arrangements with Director Fury. Don’t fight me on this.”

She nodded, looking at her partner. She could do this. She’d played nursemaid to him before, though not through such extensive damage. His face was calm, the lines of pain smoothed by the IV of drugs at his side. “I won’t, Phil. But get out of the way and push me closer. He’s going to need to see me as soon as he wakes up. They told him I was dead. That’s why he didn’t fight them. That’s why he let them do that to his hands.”

Coulson changed sides of her gurney, silently instructing those steering to move the two assassins closer together. “I heard, Natasha. Why do you think I’m sending him home with you?” he murmured softly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning, at Natasha's place. A little time to themselves...

As the fog of drug-induced unconsciousness slowly lifted, the first thing that registered to the archer was a certain smell. It was familiar, tugging at his memory, though in his current morphine haze he couldn't quite place it.   
  
He gingerly lifted his head, a groan of discomfort escaping his lips as his stiff neck muscles protested the movement. He blinked rapidly to clear his blurry vision and suddenly the source of the familiar scent snapped into place in his mind. He was stretched out on Natasha's bed in her apartment in Manhattan. It had been a temporary haven for them on a mission years ago, and it had become the spy's preferred hideaway when she was stateside. She always had the same jasmine candles in all her places, so the light floral scent was something he had come to associate with her, with feeling like he was home.  
  
Clint sat up and rolled sore shoulders, flinching at the slight tug of the IV in his arm. With a scoff he plucked it out with the stiff cast on his pinky finger and got up, blinking again to stop the world spinning as he wandered over to the bedroom window. He liked this place, it was on the top floor of a twenty story apartment building and while it wasn't technically supposed to have roof access... Well.   
  
A tiny noise behind him let the marksman know he wasn't alone in the room and he grinned crookedly without looking back. "It's been awhile since I've been here. You got new drapes." He commented with a small chuckle. "So. This must mean you're on Barton duty." He turned to face his partner who had come up right behind him.

Natasha slid her arms around the archer’s chest, carefully maneuvering till she could press herself against him. “They block the light better when I’m trying to sleep during the day.” Tilting her head up, the redhead brushed her lips against his. “So. What are you doing out of my bed?” She ducked down and out of his arms to slip behind him, steering him back to the mattress. “You’re supposed to be resting and based on what the medic said, you’re going to be groggy for another 20 minutes or so. You really don’t want to trip and fall on those hands. Correction,  _I_  don’t want you to fall on your hands. At this point, your opinion on the matter is not the relevant one.” She tamed her harsh words with a small smile that spoke volumes to him about how important his healing was to her.

She pushed him back onto the bed and then waited while he adjusted himself backwards to lie down. She took some of the pillows she had piled nearby and fashioned a makeshift backrest for him so he could be elevated somewhat. Natasha then sat on his thighs, feet folded under her, and stared at him. Her blue eyes locked with his grey as she filled herself with the sight of him. They had been separated before – different solo missions, different skill sets needed – but this was the first time since she had joined SHIELD that they had not seen each other for so long after such a bad parting. She could not get enough of the proof that he was real and alive and here.

She wanted to strangle him. While they’d been on the long flight back from China, she had bullied Coulson into updating her further on his escapades while she had been gone. Barton had done everything but swallow one of his own explosive arrows in an attempt to kill himself. Had very nearly accomplished that by throwing himself off the deep end chasing Li’s men without any kind of backup and if it hadn’t been for Phil, would have died after being tortured and likely not cared.

Her lips formed a firmer line as she ran a soft hand up and down his chest as she thought. Her brow furrowed slightly as she turned it over in her mind.  _Idiot. Bumpkin. Moron. **This**  is why love is a bad idea, _she berated herself. As she looked into his eyes, playful, affectionate, deep as the sky and as full of passion and insanity as playing in a summer storm, she felt herself relenting. He was her partner. She’d still want to strangle him regularly – that hadn’t changed in all the years they worked together. But now he was so much more and she would do anything – go through anyone – who interfered with that. Including Barton’s stubborn response to having to heal.

Clint had settled on Natasha's bed, grinning up at her as she climbed atop him, liking the feel of her slight weight on his lap. He watched her expression go sharp as she considered him and likely everything they had been through recently, not to mention what a pain in her ass he was going to be for the next while. He couldn't exactly blame her for being pissed at him. 

He knew his partner, and he knew he didn't have to say a single word to make her come around.

Clint leaned up off the pillows he was propped against, angling his head and keeping her gaze trapped with his all the way in till their lips barely brushed together, soft and warm. Her eyelids fluttered at the light contact and he felt a surge of confidence, grateful that there were no tells in her face or breathing that his touch frightened her after what had happened in Whitecrest. He had been half afraid that once the initial high of finding each other again wore off Natasha would shy away from his touch.

He kissed her gently to start, whispering without words how much he had missed the softness of her lips. When she gripped his hair with one hand and braced the other against his chest, he took it as his cue to deepen the contact and plundered her mouth with his. Clint growled in his chest as she pressed herself against him, swallowing her little moan of want and savoring every inch of contact their bodies shared. He could spend the rest of his life just kissing this woman and not regret a moment of it. 

 _She’d almost lost him._ That thought dominated her mind as Clint started to kiss the redhead. It had been a near thing.  _If Coulson…if Li’s men…if Barton had…_ there were so many ways it could have gone down where she would have awoken this morning alone and without a chance to ever see him again. His kisses made her breath catch at first, that electric rush that covered her skin like sheet lightning. Her thoughts, jumbled by his kiss, his scent, the feel of him under her and everything that could have gone wrong, became disjointed and she became lost in him. One hand in his hair, she parted her mouth, drawing her partner in.

She had missed him, missed this. The glorious quiet in her mind that only this could bring; his kisses had her climbing as close as she could to him, the thought of the careful instructions the medics had left erased from her thoughts by the insistent feel of his tongue across hers, the scent of his skin under her nose, the growl that rose from him that turned her insides to water and made her ache for him.

Natasha ran her hands over the archer’s chest and back, the map of his body familiar and still excitingly new. With few exceptions, she had seen him, touched every part of his body over the years – bandaging, stitching back together, splinting so he could keep running (Macao was a hell of an op). This was the same and very, very different. Her hands slipped down his strong arms to over the casts that held his poor hands safe. She dragged herself away from the sweet drugging effect of his kisses and locked her blue eyes with his steel grey ones. His were dark with want and likely hers were barely recognizable as blue any more. She brought each of his hands up to her mouth, kissing them softly but with the deadly concentration that told him that  _nothing_  would ever get to hurt him like this again, not if she had any say in the matter.

Then she kissed up his arms, her tongue tracing the veins in his biceps. She nipped along his collarbone until she reached the hollow of his throat, laving it with kisses and her tongue before pushing him back against the pillows again and her mouth worked down the front of his chest. His nipples in her mouth, small white teeth teasing them to hear the gasps from him before she continued down, her eyes closing as she brushed her cheek against his happy trail and kissed the bruises on his abdomen.

Looking up at the steady heated gaze of her partner, her lips curved into a teasing grin as she shifted herself down so she was lying between his legs. “Well, you’re supposed to be resting but I know how much you hate bedrest when you’re under Medical’s care.” She giggled, a sound born of pure happiness that he was here and alive and from the looks of his sweats, very much happy to see her. “The least I can do is encourage you to stay in bed.” She looked a question up at her partner, eyebrow raised. She rested her head on the edge of his pants, kissing the soft skin beneath her.

Clint hissed through clenched teeth as Natasha kissed and nipped her way down his body, pain bleeding into pleasure and making the sensations she was causing in him more intense. But much more than her touch or the way she was sending shockwaves of want through him with her hungry gaze alone, he was struck by the sound of pure, unrestrained bliss that bubbled up out of her when she teased him. The Black Widow didn't let her guard down. Natasha Romanov didn't fucking giggle. It healed places in him he didn't know were wounded to hear her sound so happy. To know he could evoke such a response from her. It wasn't luck when the world's greatest marksman hit every target he sighted, but he sure felt damn lucky right now. 

"Natasha." The archer swallowed hard and took a deep breath to center himself. He hooked the stiff edge of his cast-bound finger under her chin and prompted her to rise up from his lap towards his face. Her lust-darkened eyes clouded with confusion and he craned his head up to softly kiss her full lips.

"Less than 48 hours ago I thought you were dead. And for weeks before that I thought I had fucked up so badly I would never get to see you again. I will be damned before I finish alone the first time I have you alone back in my arms again." He said earnestly, the look in his storm cloud eyes equal parts conviction and supplication.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to NSFW. Our heroes have "found you and you're alive" sex. Because, really, wouldn't you?

Clint craned his head and captured her lips with his again, demanding entrance to her mouth and refusing to acknowledge the way his damaged ribs protested Natasha bracing herself against his chest without thinking as she readjusted her legs to straddle him as they kissed. She canted her hips to his and he braced his arms around her thighs since he couldn't grip her hips like he wanted to. It was driving him insane not to be able to touch her but the simple fact that she was alive and with him eclipsed any frustration.

The redhead ground herself against his straining bulge as they kissed and shared ragged breaths. Finally the archer nipped and licked his way along her delicate jaw to whisper roughly in her ear, "I need to be inside you Nat. Fuck I want you so bad..." He nibbled at the ticklish spot just below her ear and he felt her shiver against him. She raised herself up and quickly pushed her soft yoga pants off, Clint struggled to draw even breaths as he watched her and his wounded hands flexed in their bindings. The pain did nothing to diminish the feverish urgency that had built up and he lifted his hips to help her so she could tug his own sweats down far enough to free his throbbing length.

A stream of curses fell from his lips as she stroked him from base to tip, her fingers getting slick with his precum. He yanked at her hips as much as he could and finally the redhead slid onto his length. She was so wet and tight for him all rational parts of his brain switched off and he started thrusting up to meet her movements, feral little growls and grunts escaping his parted lips as she rode him.

She had called him her home. When he slid into her, she felt that solid connection. She was _home_. For a moment, a heartbeat, she locked eyes with her partner, wide and vulnerable and holding everything she ever felt about him. Then he started to move. He thrust up at her and god help her, she ground down against him, her head lolling to the side as she moaned. Her breath sped up and she bit her lip till it bled. She rode him like there was never going to be a tomorrow, like she could never get enough of the man beneath her.

Medical and Phil would have something to say about the fact that Barton had clearly not been following orders about downtime and rest and Natasha would get a stern talking to from Medical and a sterner, for knowing better, one from Phil. She didn’t care. He was here and he was buried in her and pounding into her and nothing in her life ever felt better except for when he had his hands as well.

She leaned forward and claimed his mouth; her tongue exploring the lips that smirked at her in briefings; his tongue that tormented her both when it was on her body and when it was being a smartass over the comms during an op. She licked the strong teeth that filled his mouth, found the chip that was still left on a back tooth from where he hadn’t bothered to have it fixed after he’d been hit in the head one too many times by some long ago bad guy.

Her hands pushed him, as gently as she could, back to prone on the pillows, still elevated enough to kiss her easily but supported. She could barely think, barely breathe with the way he was fucking up at her but the overriding need to have him fought with the part of her that needed to help him heal. So she could have _all_ of him, she told that feral part of her that screamed to let him fuck her any way he wanted to.

She licked down his jaw, hips rolling as she continued to ride him, constantly changing the angle of their bodies to pump him and grind her clit against his pubic bone. Natasha’s teeth nipped the side of his neck, worrying at the spot over his carotid, lips surrounding that point and sucking in her mouth that weathered warm flesh until she left a mark on him that would brand him as hers.  Her eyes met his and that devilish grin that she wore so infrequently and never for anyone but him spread across her face.

The little redhead sat back upright, relishing the sense of fullness, hands at her partner’s hips to still them. Her eyes alight, she touched his chest with one finger as she squeezed down on him with her inner muscles, rippling and drawing him in further to her. Her finger slid up to his lips, traced the wide mouth and dipped in to scrape against his teeth. She then brought it down to between her thighs, circling her clit as he had done for her before and as her breath grew rough and she began to move, riding him again in earnest, curses and endearments mixed with exhortations that he had to get better, that she needed his hands again. Fuck, she needed him. Any part and every bit was hers and she rode him like she was never going to do anything else.

If he was being totally honest with himself, it was hotter than hell watching Natasha touch herself as she rode him, the last of her sense running out her like water as her pleasure overwhelmed her. But damn he wanted to touch her. He wanted it to be his hands driving her towards oblivion, his fingers teasing her most sensitive flesh until she screamed his name in ecstasy. It certainly gave him motivation to tolerate the downtime ahead of him and heal up.

Clint drank in every last detail of how his partner looked and sounded in her most vulnerable moment, rocking his hips up into her and coming with a ragged sigh deep inside her as her most feminine muscles clenched around him at the peak of her pleasure. Natasha slumped forward on him, their skin slick with sweat and their breathing uneven.

Barton craned his head sideways and nuzzled at her face getting her to look him in the eye, smiling softly at her. "So. On a scale of one to completely fucked, how much trouble do you think we're gonna be in for that?" He asked with a chuckle, kissing her full lips not really caring what medical or Coulson might have to say about it. He would follow his therapy, take his meds, jump through every hoop, but they couldn't make him give up being with Natasha. He'd rather be dead, or never fire his bow again, which for Barton roughly amounted to the same thing.

“Up the ass without any lube,” Natasha responded in a deadpan voice as she smiled. She wasn’t worried about that. Coulson would be remarkably easy to deal with. His objection would be more that they were impeding Barton’s hands healing, not that they were having sex in the first place. Once upon a time, the redhead would have worried that their handler would be a stickler for regulations, but after their chat in China, she was sure that he was more than willing to look the other way about their relationship in deference to their effectiveness and his affection for them himself.

Barton chuckled at her response, nodding his head slightly in agreement but still unable or unwilling to muster a single shred of concern for what Medical might have to say about it. Right now he was still too wrapped up in the woman surrounding him and filling his vision. She was all he needed, all he'd ever need.

Medical on the other hand? They would be furious. She took his hands herself, testing to make sure that she did not see any damage to the casts they had made and after assuring herself that regardless of the fact that he manhandled her, he hadn’t caused further harm.  Her hands brushed over his sides, batting way his complaints of her tickling him with a raised eyebrow and glare. Nothing had changed, that she could tell with a cursory examination, but there were some fresh bruises at his hips where she had held on as she rode him – suspiciously Natasha-fingertip shaped bruises. She had the good grace to flush slightly at that. Not that she had marked him, but that she had lost enough control that she had been unaware of it at the time.

Looking up to see her partner smirking at her, she shook her head. “You changed the subject, you know. Don’t try to deny it, Barton.  I was going to scold you for being an idiot and trying to get yourself killed and you _changed the subject_.” Natasha leaned in, her face close to her partner’s, their breath mingling. “You _cheated.”_

He raised his eyebrows at her accusation, righteous indignation coloring his features. Despite his best efforts he still couldn't keep the self-satisfied laughter out of his voice as he responded, "Tasha, I'm hurt. There's a big difference between cheating and... making strategic use of the resources one has available." He let the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth transform his whole expression, unable to keep up the facade of being stung by her accusation with the way she was side-eyeing him.

“ _Making strategic use_ ….Clinton Francis Barton, don’t you dare try to wiggle out of this. You cheated and you know it. I’ll let you live to regret tangling with me,” Natasha scolded but her lips were twitching as she did. The joy on his face was enough to make her _almost_ forgive him for playing her like a fiddle. That and she really did love the big idiot.

The archer sighed and gingerly rolled to his side as the redhead slid off of his lap, settling on her small bed beside him. He hooked one leg possessively over hers, again feeling the sting of not being able to run his hands over the light touching her porcelain skin. "I'm sorry..." He whispered, sobering as he contemplated the past few weeks.

"We all run away in different ways, don't we?" He met her gaze, recalling everything he'd read and seen about his partner falling back into full-on Widow mode after they had parted ways. He edged his face closer to hers on the pillow, searching Natasha's face and kissing the corner of her mouth when he saw her start to retreat in on herself. "Never again. I won't if you won't. Deal?" He asked softly, kissing her sweetly again.

She stroked her fingers over her partner’s chest as they faced once another. His apology for what had happened was short and to the point but she could feel the sincerity. A slow blink as she absorbed his words about running away. Natasha never wanted to have to find out Clint had run again where she couldn’t follow him. He was her partner and she would tear the world apart to be at his back.

His plea that he wouldn’t if she wouldn’t stopped her short. “I didn’t run, Clint,” she protested. “I executed a strategic retreat from a situation that had gone out of control.  I did not run.” The kiss from the archer softened her spine from the ramrod that it had become. “Maybe a little. Just from Whitecrest because I was concerned. That what I had done was unforgivable.” She withdrew a little, her eyes dropping from his to focus on the centre of his chest. “I wasn’t the one trying to kill myself, Clint.”

Clint's eyes softened as he listened to his partner verbally backpedaling, her blue orbs dropping from his to his chest. He sighed. "Trust me, if I was the type, I would've checked out long before I met you. I just... Went numb. I couldn't deal with what I did to you, couldn't deal with losing you... So I fell back on what I used to be... Only instead of freezing over, I more took stupid risks because I didn't care if tomorrow happened. We're not all that different really." He shrugged, chuckling lightly. 

Natasha curled up against him and spoke softly again, and Clint settled his arm around her as best he could despite the cumbersome cast on his hand. She could not wait till his hands were free and he could touch her. She reached out a small white hand and toyed with the sparse chest hair she found, twining it around her fingers and stroking the skin surrounding it. “Barton, just so we’re clear. You do that again, I’ll hunt you down myself.”

He smiled and pressed his lips to the top of her head. "You're stuck with me, don't worry." He murmured, his breath rustling her curls. They lay cuddled together for a long while; Clint might have fallen asleep if not for the gradually increasing pain in his hands and upper body. He took deep, even breaths, not wanting to disturb his partner. He knew as soon as she realized he was in pain she would extract herself from his side and he didn't want to let go of her yet.

Clint rested his chin on top of Natasha's head, smiling despite his discomfort. He was willing to put up with any pain if it meant he could be close to her after going so long without. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little interlude - sorry for the delay in getting things back online folks.

Eventually, Natasha noticed something was wrong. Not because Clint didn't keep himself still, but that he kept himself so still that it was unnatural. When he was working? Sure. His sniper training could have him sit motionless for hours while sweat dripped off him, while flies danced on his nose or whatever damned thing happened until he had to take the shot. Off duty? Barton was a glorified child at times, unable to keep himself from fidgeting. She lifted her head to look at him, her gaze questioning. 

When she got no clue from his expression, she looked at the two of them – and mentally smacked herself. Her partner was down with bruised ribs and on strong painkillers to deal with the torture that Li’s men had put him through and here she was using him as a chaise lounge. She shifted, not off him but taking her weight off his torso. Sitting back on his thighs, her feet tucked under as she straddled him, her blue eyes rolling. “Barton, you could have said something.” She leaned in, careful not to touch his injured chest and kissed him softly. “I’m not going anywhere either. You don’t have to be in pain, idiot. If I’m hurting you, just say something and I’ll shift position. It’s not like I’m not capable of that.” She smirked, looking at him from beneath her long lashes, “I’d think you would be able to remember that I’m quite good at that.”

With that, the redhead began a methodical search of her partner’s injuries. Given his inability to take care of himself (idiot), it made sense to check and make sure none of the stitches were ripped. Gratefully, as she went through the list, they were all in good shape, healing and in a few of the very smaller ones, due to come out soon. She lifted herself off her partner, kissing away the whine as she went to move. “I’ll be right back. I need to get the cream for your lacerations, Clint. Stop being such a baby,” she grinned at him. Her eyes caught his and her expression went a little softer. “You have to get better, Barton. I don’t want to have let you into my heart to lose you.” She lifted her chin and, taking a deep breath, straightening her back, which had the added advantage of lifting her breasts and distracting him from her eyes for a moment till she got herself under control. “Again,” she added, sticking her tongue out at him as she walked to the bathroom, hips swaying.

Clint watched his partner disappear into her master bathroom, the second she was out of sight he let his head fall back on his pillow and let a strained breath escape his lips. It went against his every fiber to let someone else take care of him, but considering the state of his hands he hardly had any choice in the matter. At least it was Natasha tending to him. The little redhead was the only person he could let his guard down around ever since...

Clint shook his head. No, there was one other. It was going to take some time to fully wrap his mind around the fact that Coulson was alive. The marksman stared up at the ceiling. Phil was breathing. The senior agent was somewhere outside these four walls, tying up loose ends, filing paperwork, pulling some other idiotic master assassin's ass out of the frying pan and dousing the flames.

What was Clint supposed to do now? He knew exactly what to do when people left him, he was well practiced at that. But now suddenly the only two people on earth he cared about losing were back in his life. He didn't deal well with people and emotions and all the shit that came with them at the best of times, and now here he was laid out for days with nothing to do but think. Well think and convince his partner to sit on him like that as often as possible and to Hell with what Medical thinks is best for his recovery.

“I can hear you thinking too loud from here, Barton,” Natasha called out from the bath. She shook her head. One of these days he’d remember her skills were in infiltration and information gathering. Reading people was second nature and he was never terribly hard to read for her. “You might as well get used to it, arrow boy. You need help to get better and you’re stuck with the pushiest nursemaid alive.”

Clint sighed at the redhead's words, knowing he was just going to have to accept the fact that for the near future he wasn't going to be doing much of anything for himself. He could accept it, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He was torn between hoping that rat bastard who broke his fingers was dead and hoping he was still breathing so Clint could put a stop to it personally.

Natasha stepped out of the bathroom, carrying the cream in one hand and a glass and two pills in the other. She sauntered over to the mostly prone archer; shirt rucked from their earlier efforts, grinning saucily at him. She put the tube down next to his side and looked at him, eyebrow arched, hand on her hip. “You can take your medicine like a good boy or you can get it fed to you like a bad boy, but you know you’re taking it.”

Climbing back into his lap, she shook her head and leaned in to kiss him, avoiding resting against his chest and licked at his lips to get him to give her entrance to his mouth. She fought hard to keep focus and when his mouth actually parted to her, she quickly brought the pills up and tucked them into his mouth, smirking as she sat back up and passed the archer the water. 

The archer couldn't help but grin as his partner settled atop him again, liking her bedside manner more and more as she leaned down and started kissing him deeply. He growled a little in protest as she slipped him his pills, giving her a teasing scowl as he dutifully swallowed his meds with the water she gave him.

She opened the tube of the cream and squeezed a little out on her hand. “This will sting, Barton.” She began applying the medicine, a topical antibiotic combined with a corticosteroid and something else that Tony had cooked up to help him heal quicker. She had been reluctant until Phil assured her that it was safe. Or it was safe enough. The impression she’d gotten was that the older agent had explained to the smartass just exactly how he would regret it if anything happened to Barton while he played guinea pig for Stark.

"Somehow I think I've had worse." He chuckled, dismissing the sharp bite of the antibiotic cream as she applied it to his wounds. His brow furrowed as he caught a glimpse of the label on the tube. "Does that say... Nano-biotic ointment?" He asked, wondering just what was being introduced into his bloodstream through his various cuts.

Natasha explained the cream was something new Stark had come up with for SHIELD, a medicated cream laced with microscopic nanobots that repaired the body on a cellular level. "Great. So now that I'm injured and can't get away I'm a lab rat for that cocky s.o.b. This has got to be payback for Mexico, I just know it." Clint groaned, but the smirk never left his lips.

Natasha finished tending his wounds and he started to feel the fuzziness of his pain meds setting in again. Damn he hated that, the feeling of being in a fog, of knowing his senses weren't as sharp as they ought to be. In his world, being a little fuzzy meant mistakes, it meant death. He would be counting the minutes till he could get away with not taking the medication, which would be far sooner than his physician would want but that didn't matter to him.

But... Knowing he had Natasha watching over him in this state made it more bearable. She was the only thing that made this whole situation bearable, as a matter of fact. He made a muted noise of complaint when she got up to put away his meds, not wanting her away from his side for even a moment. Not after spending so long thinking he would never get to have her like this again. She came back and settled on the bed up against him but carefully keeping her weight off his chest.

"C'mere would you?" Clint slurred, chuckling as he tugged her halfway onto him with his arm. "You can't break me any worse than I already am." He didn't care if it hurt, he wanted to feel her pressing against him; needed that solid proof that she was really there. 

Natasha rolled her eyes slightly and leaned against the archer, keeping her weight slightly so she couldn't damage him further. Contrary to his statement, she was more than capable, even just leaning on him, to do more damage. Perhaps after a night of Stark’s magic compound on him, he might be doing better, but for now, she would sit with him, let him hold her and breathe in the scent of him beneath her. And guard. The steel that formed the core of who she was surrounded her. No one would harm him. Not without beating her first.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long time between posts. RL happens but we're still writing...

The morning came to find the two partners still on the one bed. Natasha was in a light doze, resting between Clint’s legs. Having curled up against them, her head resting in his lap after he had fallen asleep. Close to him but not resting on parts of him worst abused, she woke to the warm feel of his body next to hers. She smiled, breathing in the musky male scent of him. She placed her hand over his heart – still steady and easy. The medication had let him sleep solidly through the night. As she scanned his body, there were signs of improvement to the minor injuries he had. Not healed, but what should have still be there looked like two or three days had passed. She had to hand it to Stark. He might be a cocky pain in the ass, but it looked like he might know what he was talking about sometimes.

From her position, she could not help but also notice something else. It was early morning and Barton was male. She smirked. Very male and like every other man in the world, his body reacted to the morning with an erection. Unlike every other man in the world, he was in a bed with her. Her smirk broadened as she contemplated what to do. She should let him rest. Check his wounds, redress any that needed it. Apply another coat of Stark’s miracle sludge. All but sit on him to keep him from unnecessary activity to keep him healing quickly. She should. 

She couldn't though. The scent of his body in her nose, what she needed to do was finish what she had tried to do the previous day. She needed the taste and warmth of him. Unlacing and tugging the sweat pants he was wearing, stealing them down his body till they rested over the muscled curve of his thighs. His erection lay against his toned abs, just to one side of the happy trail that ran from his belly button down. Nuzzling it with her nose, she drank in the scent of him. She ran one fingernail down the length of him, from the sensitive head to the base of his balls, watching him twitch as she did so. Looking up at his face, he was still asleep. Less so than he had been a few minutes ago, but still out. She mentally apologized to her sleeping partner for not waking him. She could steal from his “ask forgiveness after” playbook and slowly, wetly and completely, took him into her mouth.

Clint didn't like experiencing the haze of heavy duty pain meds. The solid, dreamless sleep they provided was more than welcome. But something was tugging him back to consciousness. His sleep addled mind struggled to catch up to his body that had awoken far quicker. It was hollering that something very good was happening and he didn't want to miss it.

He blinked and looked down the span of his body, abdominal muscles jumping as he finally clued in. "Oh fuck..." He exclaimed, voice rougher than normal in his half-awake yet fully aroused state. He was already right on the edge of his release, his breathing shallow and uneven as he tried to get a handle on his body.

Natasha fixed her eyes on him when she saw he had woken up, a devilish glint in her eyes that he could only react to with a little chuckle. He wanted to chastise her playfully for taking his innocence like this. All that escaped his lips was a low, broken moan as she swallowed him down and her ruby lips brushed his skin at the base of his shaft. She purred around him and he shuddered, his head tipping back against the pillows as his pleasure coiled and built deep in his gut.

"Tasha..." Her name fell like a prayer as she worked him, muscles tensing and eyes closing tight as he lost himself in the sensations she was causing. He exploded with a muffled curse, lifting his head and watching his partner slide off his length with a wet popping noise. She sat up and shot him a satisfied feline grin and he couldn't help but chuckle again.

"Good morning." Clint murmured, taking a slow breath to collect himself. He raised his arm and brushed the redhead's flushed cheek with rigidly wrapped fingertips. From her blown out pupils and uneven breathing, she was more than a little riled up. He couldn't think of a better way to start his morning than by having his head between Natasha's legs. He scooted lower on the mattress with a little huff, quirking an eyebrow at her and grinning .

"Come on up sweetheart, first ride is free." He winked at her and snickered when she rolled her eyes at his sass, still she wasted little time climbing up the bed to straddle his face. Clint growled low in his chest as he breathed the sweet scent of her need, turning his head to kiss and nibble at her smooth inner thigh. He hummed with want as he gazed up at her, exhaling over her sensitive flesh and watching her stomach flutter at the light sensation.

His head craned up, licked the length of her entrance, muscles in his jaw working as he lapped up her sweet nectar and nudged her clit with his nose. His tongue delved further between her folds and a feral growl escaped him as she bucked against his face to drive him deeper inside her. Her scent, taste and the little sounds of want she was making became his whole world. Clint devoured her greedily, nipping, sucking and swirling his tongue in intricate patterns to make his lover fall apart. A small part of him felt a little guilty that his stiff whiskers were likely going to leave raw red marks on her fair skin. She didn't seem to mind the friction at the moment.

Natasha's hand slid down her abdomen and she used two fingers to open herself up further, making it easier for him to reach the button of nerves aching for attention. Clint flicked and swirled his tongue over her most sensitive spot. He kept his head and neck steady for her as she gripped his hair hard with the other hand and rode his face till she came with a shuddering cry above him. Her thighs tensed and quivered around his head as her orgasm swept through her, and he was briefly reminded of the first time she'd had her legs wrapped around his head. He much preferred this though he had to admit it had still turned him on despite the fact that she'd been trying to kill him.

Natasha swung her leg over his head and slid back down the bed to melt against him, her blue eyes glassy from her pleasure. She smiled and wiped her slickness from his stubbled chin, opting to kiss away any lingering nectar from his lips he hadn't already licked off.

The redhead rubbed against Clint like a cat, sated for the moment. When the catch of his now several days worth of stubble scraped her cheek, she stopped. She looked into the happy, still slightly hazy eyes of her partner and her eyes narrowed. “You need a shave. Fortunately, you happen to have a nurse that is an expert with a razor blade.” At the mock fear on his face, she laughed. “Relax, Barton. I’m not about to hurt you. At least not a lot,” she teased as she pulled herself away from his reclined form. “Be right back. Be good. Don’t move.” Natasha sauntered out of the room in the direction of her kitchen. 

He could hear her rustling around. Drawing water. Padding back and forth between the kitchen and what he assumed was the bathroom. He was in the bed, which pretty much left the kitchen and tiny living room and the john. Clint lifted his arms to fold them behind his head, only to realise that the cumbersome casts prevented him from doing this easily. Elbowing his pillows into something that supported his head, he dropped his hands to sides and awaited her return.

She walked back in, with a pair of tall wooden stools. Placing them down, one at his side, the other near his head, she turned to head back to the bathroom. Clint’s eyebrows quirked as he watched her. She re-emerged with an old style shaving brush, a pot of what he presumed was a soap and a couple fresh towels. Padding off to the kitchen, she returned with a small plastic bowl half filled with hot water. Natasha picked up one of the towels, immersing it in the hot water and with a practiced twist, removed it again, wringing it out well. Kissing his lips again, she wrapped his face up in the hot, wet cotton and began working up lather in the pot.

Natasha Romanov was a woman of multifarious skills and talents. Clint accepted at face value the fact that his partner had a set of shaving tools traditionally used on men. Of course she was nimble with a straight razor. She was one of the best spies and assassins in the world. He wouldn't be at all shocked to find out that the same tool she was using to carefully crop his scruff off had been painted red a time or two.

Natasha removed the towel from his face after several minutes. Clint maneuvered himself into a sitting position on the edge of her bed so she could reach him easily. His eyes tracked her every movement, fully awake now and feeling sharper than he had in a while. His hands felt stiff and sore in their bindings, but he preferred some discomfort to the haze of pain meds. When it got too unbearable he would take more. For now he was enjoying watching the most poised, deadly woman he knew smile and dot the tip of his nose with shaving lather.

Natasha applied herself to the task of cleaning the shadow from his face. It went much quick and smooth. Her blade was sharp as opposed to the dollar store over the hill model she'd used the first time she'd done this for him. Clint couldn't help but remember that night. That little kiss on the nick she gave him that started all this like the first tiny pebbles that began a landslide. He met her clear blue eyes and shared a little smirk with her, knowing her mind had wandered to the same place as his.

But...that wasn't the only memory the feeling of cold steel sliding over his throat brought to his mind. Jumbled flashes of his arm pressing Natasha's pale neck. The edge of his knife embedded in the floor. Her blood staining her skin and the floorboards. His eyes flickered involuntarily down to her neck and landing on the thin pale scar he knew he would find there. He hadn't noticed it till this moment. Maybe she hadn't let him notice it till now.

She knew him well, craning her head down to catch his gaze again and silently urging him to quit his dark thoughts. Clint grinned crookedly at her, refocusing on the here and now. It hurt him, God it hurt him knowing that he could never take back what he did to the woman he loved. For now, the fact she loved him in spite of everything he'd done and everything he lacked, amazed and comforted him.

Natasha finished, cleaning the stray foam from his ears and neck. Clint nodded his thanks. He got up to inspect her handiwork in the mirror above her dresser while she cleared away the shaving things. "Best shave I've ever had." Over his shoulder to her, turning to grin mischievously at her when she came back into her bedroom. "But you know, I was kind of hoping you'd nick my face. That worked out pretty well for me last time that happened." He winked at his partner and bent his head meet her as she stepped into his space, capturing her full lips in a long, lingering kiss.


End file.
